It's Wednesday, yay! So excited was I about doing another WIP Wednesday today that I dreamt about it this morning right before waking up, between all my alarms. Yes, I usually pre-live parts of my day in last-minute dreams.
Kate posted her second update, and here's mine.
I'm not wrestling with word count, thank goodness! My word count stressing is normally reserved for November and NaNoWriMo. I'm not even counting chapters because, even though my novel is organized into chunks, I don't really consider those chapters. Though, they probably are, and I will probably make that distinction later.
Last night I was on page 30 of approximately 180 double-spaced pages. I've upped my writing time to 15 minutes a day (baby steps), and it's going well. I have even been looking forward to revising each evening, as opposed to freaking out, dreading, and putting off for months at a time. Line editing has been enjoyable, but now I'm getting deeper into the story, and I'm coming up on scenes I haven't read in about 5 years, and feeling all the uncertainty and difficulties I felt when first writing those scenes so long ago. I'm remembering at the time, I had a gut feeling the story wasn't quite right in these places, but I didn't have time to fix them. Now, I do. Of course, I'm still as lost as I was back in college. I am glad for the instinctual feeling, though, that even if I don't know what to do yet, at least I know I can improve. Probably some major rewriting will take place. I guess I'm a bit scared of that--the tearing down. It's been so long since I've completely reworked a story. But, I think I can handle it.
Another great effect of writing every day is that my novel is staying with me even when it's not open on my computer, and I've been taking notes. This is one of my favorite parts about writing, when my brain keeps doing it even as I'm working on something else. To be chewing on characters and plot in the back of my mind makes me feel like a real writer!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
I'm Liking This Writing Thing
I met with Carolyn again today for some revising, and it was another successful meet-up! Going through my novel line-by-line is great practice for writing tight. I am realizing problems and inconsistencies, ways in which I can make the characters more believable, and figuring how I can add subplots or rewrite story lines.
It is also just awesome to sit down with another passionate writer and discuss writing. I don't think I would ever get tired of that. I started this blog partly because I love the subject of writing so much, and I really enjoy following other writers' blogs and taking part in their discussions.
And, today was my third day in a row of revising, and I'm discovering (again) that it isn't as hard as it seems. In fact, it's enjoyable! It seems that writing is easier than thinking/worrying/obsessing about writing. I will do well to remember this next time I start getting down on myself.
It is also just awesome to sit down with another passionate writer and discuss writing. I don't think I would ever get tired of that. I started this blog partly because I love the subject of writing so much, and I really enjoy following other writers' blogs and taking part in their discussions.
And, today was my third day in a row of revising, and I'm discovering (again) that it isn't as hard as it seems. In fact, it's enjoyable! It seems that writing is easier than thinking/worrying/obsessing about writing. I will do well to remember this next time I start getting down on myself.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Waiting... Is So Hard!
I applied to an MFA program in December, and they are supposed to notify in a few weeks, and I've been reading The MFA Blog, the Speakeasy at Poets & Writers, and the Suburban Ecstasies blog, and some people have already heard from this school, and I am just dying from waiting! I want to get in so bad. Every time I think about it my stomach flips.
Arrgghhhhhh!!!
I'll let you know which school once I hear something. (I'm paranoid... whatever.)
Arrgghhhhhh!!!
I'll let you know which school once I hear something. (I'm paranoid... whatever.)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Writing in Progress Wednesday
I know, it's not Wednesday anymore. But, I have been searching for QT members' blogs, and I found Kate's blog, and she has started a new weekly topic of writing about her work in progress. So, here I am writing about mine.
As I said in the previous post, I'm revising my first novel, which I wrote about five years ago but really haven't picked up again till this month. It has a beginning, middle, and end, and it's pretty clean (unlike all my NaNoWriMo drafts), but that is only because I had to turn it in for my senior project in college. If I hadn't had a deadline back then, it would still be a messy first draft.
I had been putting off revising the thing all these years because I felt too scared and unsure of myself to work on it without my advisor. But, thanks to QueryTracker.net, I don't want to put off completing this thing any longer. I want to query!
So far I've just been going through sentence by sentence and making the writing tighter. I'm familiarizing myself with the characters and story again, and I hope that as I go along, I will figure out which scenes to add and substract to make the book better. But I'm really just putting my toe in the water now.
NaNoWrimo is much easier for me. Just plow through a draft in 30 days without stopping to think or judge. This year, I'm going to give NaNoEdMo another try. That's in March--50 hours of editing. Maybe by the end of March, I won't be so scared of revising!
As I said in the previous post, I'm revising my first novel, which I wrote about five years ago but really haven't picked up again till this month. It has a beginning, middle, and end, and it's pretty clean (unlike all my NaNoWriMo drafts), but that is only because I had to turn it in for my senior project in college. If I hadn't had a deadline back then, it would still be a messy first draft.
I had been putting off revising the thing all these years because I felt too scared and unsure of myself to work on it without my advisor. But, thanks to QueryTracker.net, I don't want to put off completing this thing any longer. I want to query!
So far I've just been going through sentence by sentence and making the writing tighter. I'm familiarizing myself with the characters and story again, and I hope that as I go along, I will figure out which scenes to add and substract to make the book better. But I'm really just putting my toe in the water now.
NaNoWrimo is much easier for me. Just plow through a draft in 30 days without stopping to think or judge. This year, I'm going to give NaNoEdMo another try. That's in March--50 hours of editing. Maybe by the end of March, I won't be so scared of revising!
Monday, February 16, 2009
I Can Do This
So, I was writing again, for a day or two there, and feeling good about myself. I met with a friend at Panera a few weeks ago and told her I hadn't written a thing since NaNoWriMo, and she basically said, "Well, it's a good thing you're here today." I was like, yeah.
I said it was just so terrifying to get started again, and by that I meant all the effort involved, and me not knowing exactly how to write the thing anyway, and revising would take SO LONG, and probably I should be researching, but I didn't know where to begin, and I couldn't start writing now because I had wasted the last few months, and if I were really serious about writing I wouldn't have wasted that time, so I guess as a way to punish myself, I would never write again. (?) Yeah. Just the same old excuses. Just all those self-doubts and me being hard on myself and self-sabotaging.
Well, but that afternoon I opened the novel I'd written during NaNoWriMo and began revising, and ... it was not the hardest thing in the world! I sort of knew what I was doing, and for the most part I could trust my editing instincts. I felt really good about myself and decided, though, that instead of revising my 2005/2008 NaNo novel, I would revise the YA novel I wrote in college, because that novel is more complete. Plus, I still feel good about it, and I care about it, and it seems YA is a pretty hot market right now (even though my novel, so far, has no sex, drugs, or vampires in it).
So I revised on a Sunday and I revised on a Monday, and then I didn't do any writing-related activities till the following Sunday. But my friend was supportive and said, "Great! You wrote one day last week, now this week, just bring it up to two days." I revised (I keep wanting to say "revosed") that afternoon at Panera and felt awesome again, and then proceeded to self-sabotage for the next week, bringing me to today, where the only writing activity I'm doing is this blog. Which, I guess that's okay.
Why did I self-sabotage again last week? My goal, for now, is just to write 10 minutes a day. That is such a doable goal. But it's like I purposefully don't write just so that I can wallow in my own disappointment. And then the fears come back, and I think that I have no idea what I'm doing, and revising will take forever, and what if in the middle of looking at my novel again I won't know in which direction to go, and at this rate I'll never write my first query letter and never get published and, and, and...
I guess I have a habit of worrying about things that may never be.
Today I read a lot of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and that made me excited about writing again. Then tonight at Barnes & Noble I read the first story in the current issue of Glimmer Train (Stephanie Dickinson's "A Hole in the Soup"), and it was so good. I started it skeptically, thinking this isn't the kind of story I normally read, but it drew me in, and the writing was so good and the imagery and emotions so vivid I almost cried a few times. And I thought, "Now I understand why Glimmer Train didn't accept my short story last summer," but I also thought, "I can do this! I love writing like this author loves writing, and I can get to this point if I work at it and practice and stop being so scared."
If writing is a craft, then it makes sense that I will have to work at it day by day and get better over time. It is not an instant gratification thing. Writing and revising are activities to be done every day (if I can help it--NOT sabotage it) because I love writing and stories and perfect sentences. I can do this.
I said it was just so terrifying to get started again, and by that I meant all the effort involved, and me not knowing exactly how to write the thing anyway, and revising would take SO LONG, and probably I should be researching, but I didn't know where to begin, and I couldn't start writing now because I had wasted the last few months, and if I were really serious about writing I wouldn't have wasted that time, so I guess as a way to punish myself, I would never write again. (?) Yeah. Just the same old excuses. Just all those self-doubts and me being hard on myself and self-sabotaging.
Well, but that afternoon I opened the novel I'd written during NaNoWriMo and began revising, and ... it was not the hardest thing in the world! I sort of knew what I was doing, and for the most part I could trust my editing instincts. I felt really good about myself and decided, though, that instead of revising my 2005/2008 NaNo novel, I would revise the YA novel I wrote in college, because that novel is more complete. Plus, I still feel good about it, and I care about it, and it seems YA is a pretty hot market right now (even though my novel, so far, has no sex, drugs, or vampires in it).
So I revised on a Sunday and I revised on a Monday, and then I didn't do any writing-related activities till the following Sunday. But my friend was supportive and said, "Great! You wrote one day last week, now this week, just bring it up to two days." I revised (I keep wanting to say "revosed") that afternoon at Panera and felt awesome again, and then proceeded to self-sabotage for the next week, bringing me to today, where the only writing activity I'm doing is this blog. Which, I guess that's okay.
Why did I self-sabotage again last week? My goal, for now, is just to write 10 minutes a day. That is such a doable goal. But it's like I purposefully don't write just so that I can wallow in my own disappointment. And then the fears come back, and I think that I have no idea what I'm doing, and revising will take forever, and what if in the middle of looking at my novel again I won't know in which direction to go, and at this rate I'll never write my first query letter and never get published and, and, and...
I guess I have a habit of worrying about things that may never be.
Today I read a lot of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and that made me excited about writing again. Then tonight at Barnes & Noble I read the first story in the current issue of Glimmer Train (Stephanie Dickinson's "A Hole in the Soup"), and it was so good. I started it skeptically, thinking this isn't the kind of story I normally read, but it drew me in, and the writing was so good and the imagery and emotions so vivid I almost cried a few times. And I thought, "Now I understand why Glimmer Train didn't accept my short story last summer," but I also thought, "I can do this! I love writing like this author loves writing, and I can get to this point if I work at it and practice and stop being so scared."
If writing is a craft, then it makes sense that I will have to work at it day by day and get better over time. It is not an instant gratification thing. Writing and revising are activities to be done every day (if I can help it--NOT sabotage it) because I love writing and stories and perfect sentences. I can do this.
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