It's a vague plan, but I have one! And so I present my six-steps plan to fix my mess!
1. Take a deep breath
Whenever I think of how much work I have ahead (it doesn't help that I have two drafts), I hear a little panicked voice yell that I won't make it, that there is too much to do. There's no. I can do this. I just need to take my time and work hard.
If I could find the time to write 65k over four days, I will find the time to straighten my story.
2. Figure out what I want to keep
I keep talking about a mess, but the truth is that there's a lot of good things buried in it. I have to take the time and list what I want to keep for the next version - Margo's blankets, in short. I need to know what about these two stories really hooked me, and what can still fit in.
The rest can die in a fire.
3. Take another deep breath
Because, well, the hardest part is just coming!
4. Figure out how to fill the holes
All this cleaning up is bound to leave a lot of questions. How do I fix X plothole? What can replace Character Y? How do I start/end the story instead of Z? These are the big questions. It's one thing to throw everything away and another to find how to replace it.
Will it be any better? It seems obvious for the solutions I thought of on the spot during NaNoWriMo, but some of what I'll throw to the winds has been around for a year now. That is harder, but I have scrapped first ideas before. I can do it again.
All I need is to go back to Steps 1 and 3 a few times.
5. Do a complete outline
The two novels that came out the best during my first draft had a complete and detailed outline, from beginning to end. Yes, the scenes themselves changed. Some were added and others removed, but the general structure worked, and it stood strong despite the craziness of NaNoWriMo. I'm a plotter. I work best with outlines. This time they won't be half-completed when I start.
6. Start writing
Only when I feel ready for it, and not at the same velocity. I know I will end up hitting a 40-50k /month rate, because that is how I normally work, but this time I won't do word sprints. There's a difference between advancing fast because you're in the right beat and advancing fast because you have to. You only need to read the end of White Echoes to tell. I was fast (surprisingly so), but the story still flows a lot better than during the first part because I knew where it was going.
So, yes. Writing, with a little bit of Steps 1 and 3 for every time I feel like I'm going in circles with this project.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Figuring out the next step
NaNoWriMo is over. I managed to write two complete stories in a month. The writing is every bit of the confused mess I predicted it would be. No, wait, this year it's even worse.
For the last two days, I've worked on accepting that the two drafts I now have are not even at a stage where I can edit them out. True, last year I would always end up rewriting half of every scenes (the beginnings were awful), but the plot was tight, at least, and held itself without needing major corrections.
This year my two outlines were incomplete on both novels. I had little idea what would happen past the halfway point, except for a few key scenes in Edingher. It caused problems in the final version, though not of the same nature.
Some characters have to be removed. Others need radical changes. Entire subplots were added in during November, and have to be better tied in. Edingher's ending has to change (somehow...) and White Echoes' beginning is, despite two complete rewrites, still clumsy. It will have to go.
So, where to go? Where to start? I have plots and characters that have matured during november, but now it means I have to start over again. It was always a risk. At least I have two weeks to think it through (finals are coming and I will not be doing a lot of writing during these).
Anyone else had massive revisions in their storyline? How do you deal with it?
For the last two days, I've worked on accepting that the two drafts I now have are not even at a stage where I can edit them out. True, last year I would always end up rewriting half of every scenes (the beginnings were awful), but the plot was tight, at least, and held itself without needing major corrections.
This year my two outlines were incomplete on both novels. I had little idea what would happen past the halfway point, except for a few key scenes in Edingher. It caused problems in the final version, though not of the same nature.
Some characters have to be removed. Others need radical changes. Entire subplots were added in during November, and have to be better tied in. Edingher's ending has to change (somehow...) and White Echoes' beginning is, despite two complete rewrites, still clumsy. It will have to go.
So, where to go? Where to start? I have plots and characters that have matured during november, but now it means I have to start over again. It was always a risk. At least I have two weeks to think it through (finals are coming and I will not be doing a lot of writing during these).
Anyone else had massive revisions in their storyline? How do you deal with it?
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Lessons of NaNoWriMo
Look at that. I'm not dead! Impressive, if a bit surprising. I'm aware I rather disappeared in the last days, and apologise for it. NaNoWriMo always do that to me. I find it hard to do anything but study, write, and lead my region (believe me, the last is quite a lot of time).
But it's over now, and I return to my little corner of the internet. I feel different, too. I always do, after NaNoWriMo.
The simple reason for that is that every year, I learn something new about myself, both as a person and as a writer. And we'll focus on the latter, of course. ;)
The first year of NaNoWriMo was a very simple lesson for me: I could, indeed, write a novel, and I found it immensely fun and satisfying. There was a magic in the experience nothing else had ever brought to me first. I wanted to keep writing, year after year, as a hobby.
The second year of NaNoWriMo is when I started dreaming of publication. It'd crossed my mind over the summer, when I wrote a straightforward fantasy novel called Ellistrie, still waiting to be revisited. I loved the plot. I loved the characters. It was my first novel since NaNo '08, too, but the magic had been back. It returned during November, a thousand times over, and I went from writing 64k to writing 207k. It was crazy, but strangely enough, the two main stories had a solid plot. I could write fast, but well enough. (on a macro level).
This year, my third, I admit I had a lot more trouble combining my obsessive, overachieving wrimo personality with my calmer, aspiring-writer half. I wanted to come out of this NaNoWriMo with something readable, and unlike last year, my plot refused to obey me. I fell behind. I got angry, and desperate. I stopped posting here, too, at about that moment.
It wasn't before the middle of the third week that I found my balance. I still hadn't finished my first novel (Edingher) and was 30k behind schedule. I realised this hadn't gone where I wanted it to, and not because the scenes weren't as 'shiny' as first imagined. It was something more, something deeper about the novel.
I still don't know what, either. But I accepted it. The storyline needs to be reworked. The characters were doing things that didn't match what they'd become. I could feel more problems coming. I wanted to stop, to move on to the second story (White Echoes). And then I clicked. I figured out how to cover one plot hole, then a second. Not all of them, not quite, but just enough to give me a second wind.
That's when I understood this wasn't my real first draft. This wasn't my storyline as it'd stand for publication, not even close. This was me, in the middle of my favourite month, the craziest of them, surrounded by friends both new and old, trying to figure out who these characters were, and how the world reacted to them.
This year I learned to use NaNoWriMo as a sandbox. I decided to build all the castles I wanted, to cast them down if I felt like it, to try things out. I wrote three different endings to Edingher, two beginnings to White Echoes (and I know a third is coming). I scratched out entire scenes that had gone wrong (kept the words) and rewrote them right away.
Everything was easier from there. So easy, in fact, that between Friday the 26th and midnight on Nov. 30th, I managed to write out 65,000 words. And you know what? They are probably the most important scenes I've written through the entire month. They were the one that worked.
Yes, I will rewrite it all over again, through the year. I don't think I wasted my time, however, not for a single moment. Now I know who my characters are. I know where my story goes, from top to bottom, and I know that even when put to fire, that outline will hold. There's something organic to it that I have trouble recreating when I am not writing.
That's what NaNoWriMo 2010 became to me. My two NaNo drafts are, in truth, two big outlines. And more than ever, I feel motivated to keep going.
But it's over now, and I return to my little corner of the internet. I feel different, too. I always do, after NaNoWriMo.
The simple reason for that is that every year, I learn something new about myself, both as a person and as a writer. And we'll focus on the latter, of course. ;)
The first year of NaNoWriMo was a very simple lesson for me: I could, indeed, write a novel, and I found it immensely fun and satisfying. There was a magic in the experience nothing else had ever brought to me first. I wanted to keep writing, year after year, as a hobby.
The second year of NaNoWriMo is when I started dreaming of publication. It'd crossed my mind over the summer, when I wrote a straightforward fantasy novel called Ellistrie, still waiting to be revisited. I loved the plot. I loved the characters. It was my first novel since NaNo '08, too, but the magic had been back. It returned during November, a thousand times over, and I went from writing 64k to writing 207k. It was crazy, but strangely enough, the two main stories had a solid plot. I could write fast, but well enough. (on a macro level).
This year, my third, I admit I had a lot more trouble combining my obsessive, overachieving wrimo personality with my calmer, aspiring-writer half. I wanted to come out of this NaNoWriMo with something readable, and unlike last year, my plot refused to obey me. I fell behind. I got angry, and desperate. I stopped posting here, too, at about that moment.
It wasn't before the middle of the third week that I found my balance. I still hadn't finished my first novel (Edingher) and was 30k behind schedule. I realised this hadn't gone where I wanted it to, and not because the scenes weren't as 'shiny' as first imagined. It was something more, something deeper about the novel.
I still don't know what, either. But I accepted it. The storyline needs to be reworked. The characters were doing things that didn't match what they'd become. I could feel more problems coming. I wanted to stop, to move on to the second story (White Echoes). And then I clicked. I figured out how to cover one plot hole, then a second. Not all of them, not quite, but just enough to give me a second wind.
That's when I understood this wasn't my real first draft. This wasn't my storyline as it'd stand for publication, not even close. This was me, in the middle of my favourite month, the craziest of them, surrounded by friends both new and old, trying to figure out who these characters were, and how the world reacted to them.
This year I learned to use NaNoWriMo as a sandbox. I decided to build all the castles I wanted, to cast them down if I felt like it, to try things out. I wrote three different endings to Edingher, two beginnings to White Echoes (and I know a third is coming). I scratched out entire scenes that had gone wrong (kept the words) and rewrote them right away.
Everything was easier from there. So easy, in fact, that between Friday the 26th and midnight on Nov. 30th, I managed to write out 65,000 words. And you know what? They are probably the most important scenes I've written through the entire month. They were the one that worked.
Yes, I will rewrite it all over again, through the year. I don't think I wasted my time, however, not for a single moment. Now I know who my characters are. I know where my story goes, from top to bottom, and I know that even when put to fire, that outline will hold. There's something organic to it that I have trouble recreating when I am not writing.
That's what NaNoWriMo 2010 became to me. My two NaNo drafts are, in truth, two big outlines. And more than ever, I feel motivated to keep going.
Friday, November 19, 2010
NaNoWriMo Status Update 3: Still Behind
So I may or may not have vanished for a week. I have to say, I half-expected it happen with NaNo, especially with being so late on my attempted goal. I still am, for the record, though a bit less with every passing day. Hopefully this weekend will allow me to catch up more completely.
Last week I waited to post until I had finished my 50k. This week I am at 89,9k, and I just finished Edingher's NaNo Draft. I can't even call it a first draft, at this stage. I need to apologise to the fourth wall for this writing. It's by far some of the worst I have done during NaNoWriMo.
Nevertheless, I move on to White Echoes, and characters I already know and shouldn't jump some surprise complexities at me. More twists and turns, perhaps, but nothing the scale of a decade-long hatred.
Soldiering on.
Last week I waited to post until I had finished my 50k. This week I am at 89,9k, and I just finished Edingher's NaNo Draft. I can't even call it a first draft, at this stage. I need to apologise to the fourth wall for this writing. It's by far some of the worst I have done during NaNoWriMo.
Nevertheless, I move on to White Echoes, and characters I already know and shouldn't jump some surprise complexities at me. More twists and turns, perhaps, but nothing the scale of a decade-long hatred.
Soldiering on.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
NaNoWRiMo Status Update 2 : The Catching Up
As of 1:35 am EST, on this fine Saturday, I am once again gifted with a green bar on the NaNoWriMo website. This is great, as I had a far harder to get this one than last year's. It is less great, as I was, according to my schedule, supposed to get it on Monday. Oops? *shrugs*
Every year there is a major difference between the current NaNo and the last. The second year I had just become a ML, and I believe the cheers of my region overstimulated me into greatness. The entire month was a strange, happy and tired daze. It was fantastic.
This year, the change is on another level than NaNo's. Between NaNo '09 and NaNo '10, I discovered the publishing world. I discovered Nathan Bransford's blog, and from there a dozen others. I spent a year editing, and learning what it really meant to polish a first draft. At least part of what it meant.
It was a lot harder to lock away the Inner Editor this year, to fall back into the blissful, no-holding-back writing frenzy of NaNoWriMo. I had to find a new purpose for this first draft, a meaning that was something else than a canvas to work from.
I am discovering my characters and my story. Things are happening that I had not planned for. Characters are adding a fourth and fifth dimension to what they had. The already complex outline is getting even more complex (it's driving me insane).
I feel that after I wrote this story, I will have a better idea of where it was meant to go. And that will make another draft easier to write.
Nothing is ever lost during NaNoWriMo. I knew that, and I learned it again this year.
I hope you are all doing well! And a shoutout to BookOwl, who I believe finished earlier this week, and was cheering me on twitter yesterday. You go!
Every year there is a major difference between the current NaNo and the last. The second year I had just become a ML, and I believe the cheers of my region overstimulated me into greatness. The entire month was a strange, happy and tired daze. It was fantastic.
This year, the change is on another level than NaNo's. Between NaNo '09 and NaNo '10, I discovered the publishing world. I discovered Nathan Bransford's blog, and from there a dozen others. I spent a year editing, and learning what it really meant to polish a first draft. At least part of what it meant.
It was a lot harder to lock away the Inner Editor this year, to fall back into the blissful, no-holding-back writing frenzy of NaNoWriMo. I had to find a new purpose for this first draft, a meaning that was something else than a canvas to work from.
I am discovering my characters and my story. Things are happening that I had not planned for. Characters are adding a fourth and fifth dimension to what they had. The already complex outline is getting even more complex (it's driving me insane).
I feel that after I wrote this story, I will have a better idea of where it was meant to go. And that will make another draft easier to write.
Nothing is ever lost during NaNoWriMo. I knew that, and I learned it again this year.
I hope you are all doing well! And a shoutout to BookOwl, who I believe finished earlier this week, and was cheering me on twitter yesterday. You go!
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