Feminine Ink Revisited, This Time With A Guy

It's been years since I was involved with Feminine Ink. I don't even know if they're still going. I started the group so I like to think that somewhere in a coffee shop in Colorado Springs, Mickey and company are going strong.

The Fem Ink (as it became known) rules were as follows:
1) I did all the prompts. Yes, I can be a control freak, but with good reason in the case of a couple regulars.
2) We wrote for about 7 minutes without stopping. If you didn't know what to write next, you wrote "I don't know what to write," or "la la la," or "Deb's a big old jerk for picking this stupid prompt." It helped thicken my skin.
3) Then everyone read what they'd written.
4) No critiquing or really commenting on the writing was allowed. This was to protect feelings and to avoid discouraging those who were just starting their writer's journey.
5) And the last rule of Fem Ink Club was no talking about Fem Ink Club. That way no one would feel they couldn't write what they wanted.

At our CWC meeting on April 26, we did something similar. I had submitted the first 300 pages of MMG at the end of March and the rest of it at the April meeting. This meant we had nothing to critique since I didn't want a partial critique--I know, picky picky picky. This experiment differed from Fem Ink in that:

1) Everyone brought in 2 prompts (although we only used 1 each)
2) Feedback on the writing was encouraged

It was fabulous. The write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants muscles were stiff. It felt good to exercise them a bit. With 4 of the 5 prompts being complete surprises, I didn't have to worry about subconsciously pre-writing anything. The feedback we got, although all positive, was very helpful. We know each other so well that what was left unsaid was just as useful as what was voiced.

Jenny threw in a twist, as she is wont to do, and said we should all expand on one of our responses and submit it this month. Which to do? Should I use one of the ones with a strong restriction? One allowed no visual descriptions and another was written without adjectives or adverbs. Or take one that will allow me to go off in any direction?

I'll read through them later and decide. Whatever I pick, I know I'm going to learn something and have fun doing it. What more can you ask for?

Blind Rewrites

Jenny and Ali talk about a method of rewriting short stories called "The Blind Rewrite." I don't know that it warrants capitalization and quotation marks, but that's the way they always say it. What you do, as I understand it, is rewrite without looking at the first draft. Hence, blind. The theory behind that is that you will remember what it important and forget what isn't. Not sure that I completely agree, but it's a method.

However, how does one manage that with a novel? Yeah, I didn't even want to think about going there. But I came up with something that worked.

Step 1) Print out a clean copy of manuscript.
Step 2) Read and mark up.
Step 3) Add in any pertinent comments from critique group.
Step 4) Using the now not-so-clean copy, retype the whole thing.

Oooh, you say, no wonder it took you so frikkin' long to get that rewrite done. Well, yeah. But I think it was worth it. We'll find out at the end of the month if the CWC agrees.

There were areas in the original where I'd started telling instead of showing. There were missing scenes needed for tying others together, for clarifying certain things, for heightening tension. I had dreaded having to write those new scenes, but by retyping the whole thing, those scenes just kind of organically appeared.

Another benefit was noticing a lot of continuity issues and many other missing scenes. I was also more aware of repetitions--words, phrases, ideas, actions. I know I didn't catch or fix all of them--that's what critique groups are for--but I caught a lot more than I did in the read-through.

One of my fears going into the rewrite was that I wouldn't have enough when I finished. I started with just shy of 200 pages, maybe 50,000 words. Way too short for a mainstream novel. What if there wasn't enough 'there' there for a full novel? Well, not to worry. The finished product was 603 pages and a little over 104,000 words. Which gives me a nice buffer for the things CWC will cut.

Cutting and pasting would not have solved nearly so many of the problems. Especially not the problems I didn't realize I had. This may be a time-consuming method, but it's one I'm going to keep using. At least for the 1st rewrite after receiving feedback from the gang.

There will be other things to fix, but I hope that this version is in good enough shape that those won't be major.

Fingers crossed.

May Goals

Not many blog posts last month. It may have had something to do with working on those April goals. I felt that if I had time to write anything, I should be working on MMG. So I did. Although I missed the deadline for getting everything to CWC, I did finish the rewrites at 9:45 p.m. on 4/30/10. So I did complete them in April. The final pages went to Ali, Jenny & Shane on Saturday (after I took the full manuscript to Carrie so she could be first). I will deliver Mary's to her today on my lunch break. Phew!

I hope to blog more this month on the experience of revising something so big. It came in at a little over 104,000 words. I'm sure I'll be told to cut many of them, but it definitely needed more than the first drafts had.

So, May goals. I'm taking it easy this month, gang.

--Expand on one of the prompt responses for CWC.
--Work on short stories.
--Work on poetry.

Just playing with words for a while. Soon enough I'll have to get serious with either Vesta or TKoS.

April Goals

I didn't make it all the way through the revisions of MMG last month, but I'm pretty happy with the way it's going. I gave 300 pages to CWC on Monday night. They'll get the rest at the end of the month. Feedback is set for the May meeting. Can't wait to find out if it's worth saving or not.

April goals are easy. No critiques to do. Just one thing to finish. So here we go:

--Retype marked up pages. (300/? pages)
--Read through.
--Make any quick fixes found in read-through.
--Print out for CWC and Carrie. And any other takers. (300/?)

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.

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.

What A Rush

And that's actually a double rush. One from being on a new blood pressure medication. The second from getting so much accomplished last month. I definitely like the latter one better.

Just look at all I did (and it doesn't even cover the non-writing related stuff):

--Finish reading MMG with plot questions in mind (300/300 pages)
--Look at all characters and determine if they stay or go (Done)
--Fill out character surveys on remaining characters (Done)
--Review each scene for what it adds (or doesn't) to the story (Done)
--Plot map entire manuscript (Done)
--Revise 1st third of manuscript (Done)
--Complete CWC critiques (2/2)

Yay, me! Everything with a check mark. I like this breaking things down, um, thing. Let's do it again for March, shall we?

--Mark up all of the printout of previous version.
--Write missing scenes.
--Retype marked up pages.
--Read through.
--Make any quick fixes found in read-through.
--Print out for CWC and Carrie. And any other takers.
--Do CWC critiques. (0/2)

I'm really glad there are five Mondays this month.