The group gave me their feedback on MMG last night.
The comments were fabulous. Really good suggestions all the way around. I was told to leave several scenes as is--which is always nice to hear. Love that.
There is quite a bit that needs work. Maybe not a lot of work, but work nonetheless. One of the suggestions--that I agree with, btw--is that the main narrative needs to change from 1st to 3rd person. And other sections that are in 3rd person need to switch to 1st. Again, I agree. But hate that. Lots of work to get it right.
I don't want to wait a long time to start this next revision. And the gang agreed. "Jump in" seemed to be the consensus. Love that.
But that means I'll have to shelve what I'd planned to do next. Only mildly dislike that, truth be told.
AND they gave me a pass on having to submit anything new this month, which I was supposed to do. See item above about shelving the planned next project. Love, love, love that.
So that's 5 loves to 1.25 hates.
Guess it's still love.
Showing posts with label Doing the damn work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doing the damn work. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Surfacing
I realized early last week that I would not have a full, revised manuscript to give to CWC on the 28th if I didn't do something drastic. Even with working on it during lunch hours, stealing time at work and using every unbooked evening wasn't going to get me there. So I took Friday off and left it open to take this Friday off if I need to.
At first, I had a little trouble settling down. But it was nice to have a table to spread out my marked up pages, notebook, index cards, coffee, etc. Soon I was typing away, not only fixing old stuff but adding new stuff. There were interruptions, though. I was doing laundry at the same time--that old multi-tasking gene just wouldn't shut up. But I had 30 new pages at the end of the day.
Saturday I settled in much more easily. No laundry. No housework (which I'll pay for later). Just me and my story. I was so into it, there didn't seem to be anything else. I've never experienced that with revisions. First drafts, yes, but not rewrites. Before I knew it, I had 50 more pages knocked out. Pages that I was happy with.
Yesterday, I had to deal with some other obligations. And, man, was that tough. I felt like I had to fight my way up from the bottom of the ocean. The real world looked odd, off, foreign. I just wanted to go back into MY world, the one I had created. I was a bit snappish early on. Spent some time in the writing room, reading some of my friends' stuff. Not exactly my world, but not this one either. By the time I met a friend for a play at Theatreworks, I was back here.
It's probably a good thing I did that yesterday. I'm not sure my boss or coworkers would be very understanding about it. Snapping at the boss or customers is not a good idea. Especially if you need the job.
I'll still need to take this Friday off. Possibly Thursday, depending on how much I can get done during lunch breaks and after work. But now, instead of feeling like I'm wasting vacation time, I'm looking forward to getting back to that world.
At first, I had a little trouble settling down. But it was nice to have a table to spread out my marked up pages, notebook, index cards, coffee, etc. Soon I was typing away, not only fixing old stuff but adding new stuff. There were interruptions, though. I was doing laundry at the same time--that old multi-tasking gene just wouldn't shut up. But I had 30 new pages at the end of the day.
Saturday I settled in much more easily. No laundry. No housework (which I'll pay for later). Just me and my story. I was so into it, there didn't seem to be anything else. I've never experienced that with revisions. First drafts, yes, but not rewrites. Before I knew it, I had 50 more pages knocked out. Pages that I was happy with.
Yesterday, I had to deal with some other obligations. And, man, was that tough. I felt like I had to fight my way up from the bottom of the ocean. The real world looked odd, off, foreign. I just wanted to go back into MY world, the one I had created. I was a bit snappish early on. Spent some time in the writing room, reading some of my friends' stuff. Not exactly my world, but not this one either. By the time I met a friend for a play at Theatreworks, I was back here.
It's probably a good thing I did that yesterday. I'm not sure my boss or coworkers would be very understanding about it. Snapping at the boss or customers is not a good idea. Especially if you need the job.
I'll still need to take this Friday off. Possibly Thursday, depending on how much I can get done during lunch breaks and after work. But now, instead of feeling like I'm wasting vacation time, I'm looking forward to getting back to that world.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Two Unexpected Hours
Monday night was our regularly scheduled Pirates' Night. We gather, eat pizza, drink whatever and talk. About books read and movies watched and life lived, but mostly about writing. It's informal. No critiques, although pages are swapped once in a while. A night I look forward to all month.
I arrived at 5:30, ordered my slice of pizza, found a seat and pulled out my manuscript to mark up. I ate the slice while I continued to mark up pages. I wrote missing scenes. Every so often I glanced at the door. Ali had said she'd be + 1, but late. Fleur couldn't make it. But no one else showed up either.
About 7:10, I texted Ali. She was about 15 minutes away. Then I ordered a decaf latte. And I marked up more.
At 7:30 Ali + 1 arrived. I put my marked up pages away, and the usual talking commenced. No one else made it. Life managed to interfere with more than one Pirate this month. Emails had been sent after I'd left work for the day. But the talk was interesting, and the next two hours flew by.
It wasn't until the next morning that I pulled out those marked up pages to see how many there were. Surely I'd made my 30 page goal for the day. Goal + 67! 97 pages in two hours. Two hours I didn't expect to have. Two hours that prove how much can be accomplished if the butt is planted in a chair and a pen is kept in the hand.
And I'd managed to get past the worm hole without being sucked in. You know the point. The place where I'd decide I needed to go back to the beginning and start over. But I just scribbled right past it. I'm now in "new" territory.
This means I'll have revisions done well before the CWC meeting this month. I may even get a second pass (quick though it will have to be) to do more clean up. All because of two hours.
I'm keeping a look out for two more.
I arrived at 5:30, ordered my slice of pizza, found a seat and pulled out my manuscript to mark up. I ate the slice while I continued to mark up pages. I wrote missing scenes. Every so often I glanced at the door. Ali had said she'd be + 1, but late. Fleur couldn't make it. But no one else showed up either.
About 7:10, I texted Ali. She was about 15 minutes away. Then I ordered a decaf latte. And I marked up more.
At 7:30 Ali + 1 arrived. I put my marked up pages away, and the usual talking commenced. No one else made it. Life managed to interfere with more than one Pirate this month. Emails had been sent after I'd left work for the day. But the talk was interesting, and the next two hours flew by.
It wasn't until the next morning that I pulled out those marked up pages to see how many there were. Surely I'd made my 30 page goal for the day. Goal + 67! 97 pages in two hours. Two hours I didn't expect to have. Two hours that prove how much can be accomplished if the butt is planted in a chair and a pen is kept in the hand.
And I'd managed to get past the worm hole without being sucked in. You know the point. The place where I'd decide I needed to go back to the beginning and start over. But I just scribbled right past it. I'm now in "new" territory.
This means I'll have revisions done well before the CWC meeting this month. I may even get a second pass (quick though it will have to be) to do more clean up. All because of two hours.
I'm keeping a look out for two more.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Eating The Elephant
Revising almost 400 pages feels impossible. Never mind that I'm the one who wrote them in the first place, pulling each word out of thin air. That part seems so easy compared with making those words better. To deleting some of those hard fought for words and adding (praise the goddess, is it possible?) more words. How does anyone ever get through all this?
One word at a time, of course. One page. One scene. One chapter. One book. Easy peasy.
Of course, it's not quite that linear. What in writing really is? But it is still possible to break it down into steps. [See goals at left.] As I read through the manuscript, I realized that not only are there things that need to go or be expanded or contracted, but that I have a few missing scenes as well. One small bite of the elephant is going to be roughing those out and setting them in place so they can be polished with their respective chapters.
Then put the extras (journal entries, etc) where they belong throughout the main narrative.
I plan to use the hard copy to mark up. After about 100 pages, I'll transcribe into the computer. Then the next 100 and so on. This will actually give me 2 revisions for the price of 1. Once on the hard copy and then again when I type it in. Because I always find something when I'm transcribing.
When I lay it out like that, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. And I need it to not feel like a big deal.
Any other tricks you've discovered to help tackle "impossible" jobs?
One word at a time, of course. One page. One scene. One chapter. One book. Easy peasy.
Of course, it's not quite that linear. What in writing really is? But it is still possible to break it down into steps. [See goals at left.] As I read through the manuscript, I realized that not only are there things that need to go or be expanded or contracted, but that I have a few missing scenes as well. One small bite of the elephant is going to be roughing those out and setting them in place so they can be polished with their respective chapters.
Then put the extras (journal entries, etc) where they belong throughout the main narrative.
I plan to use the hard copy to mark up. After about 100 pages, I'll transcribe into the computer. Then the next 100 and so on. This will actually give me 2 revisions for the price of 1. Once on the hard copy and then again when I type it in. Because I always find something when I'm transcribing.
When I lay it out like that, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. And I need it to not feel like a big deal.
Any other tricks you've discovered to help tackle "impossible" jobs?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Getting Serious(er)
With two and half novel first drafts completed, I decided it just might be time to be more serious about this writing thing. I don't think it's going away. Not going to outgrow it or grow bored with it. No cures in sight.
So, I joined Publisher's Marketplace today. I've belonged before on their free lunch, but it doesn't provide the detail to really do the research on what's selling, for how much and by whom. You can even click on Top Dealmaker's and see who is getting the best deals by genre. Even by "Debut". How cool is that? One Mr. Lazar is rated #13 on that list for number of deals made for debut authors. He's also had several 6 figure advances recently. Loving him more and more. [But staying realistic in my expectations.]
Another part of the getting seriouser is knuckling down and doing the frikkin' rewrites. Goals for this month remain the same, because I also know I can't drop the momentum on TNN. But my January is going to be all about the rewrites. [You've heard it before, but NaNo changed something. I did something I thought I couldn't do. It's kinda magical.] I will look at how many chapters I have in MMG and Vesta, then break it down into a certain number of chapters a day. If there are too many to realistically get through both in one month, I'll settle for MMG in January and Vesta in February.
Dreaming is great. Dreaming is what's motivated me this far. Dreaming is where a lot of the ideas come from. But doing the damn work is what pays off.
Time to get to work.
So, I joined Publisher's Marketplace today. I've belonged before on their free lunch, but it doesn't provide the detail to really do the research on what's selling, for how much and by whom. You can even click on Top Dealmaker's and see who is getting the best deals by genre. Even by "Debut". How cool is that? One Mr. Lazar is rated #13 on that list for number of deals made for debut authors. He's also had several 6 figure advances recently. Loving him more and more. [But staying realistic in my expectations.]
Another part of the getting seriouser is knuckling down and doing the frikkin' rewrites. Goals for this month remain the same, because I also know I can't drop the momentum on TNN. But my January is going to be all about the rewrites. [You've heard it before, but NaNo changed something. I did something I thought I couldn't do. It's kinda magical.] I will look at how many chapters I have in MMG and Vesta, then break it down into a certain number of chapters a day. If there are too many to realistically get through both in one month, I'll settle for MMG in January and Vesta in February.
Dreaming is great. Dreaming is what's motivated me this far. Dreaming is where a lot of the ideas come from. But doing the damn work is what pays off.
Time to get to work.
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