Not there...

Okay, I admit. I can't write anything serious right now while life is full of other things. Trying to commit to a revision of DTD, but brain is too distracted to do it. Sticking with flash fiction and short things, but they're not satisfying. Having trouble reading too. I think I've started probably five books in the last month, and all sit languishing on the shelf, unfinished.

I'm oddly cool with this huge chunk of downtime. I'm not feeling like I can't ever write again, it's just feeling like necessary time off while some big changes occur. I think if I started to work on a bigger project that's important to me, I would resent the Real Life things for intruding on my valuable writing time.

So, opting to stick with very short things that won't engage the better part of my brain.

Ain't that the truth?

favorite phrase of the day...

"Multi-tasking means that you can do a lot of nothing at once."

from one of matociquala's journal entries today. She also wrote this, which cracked me up.

@$()*@(#)$*)(*#&$@#*

Stupid blogger. Stupid "upgrade" changes. Stupid Google account whatever.

I. Hate. This.

Why yes, of course I just love change, why do you ask?

all play and no work...

Been neglecting this blog in favor of LJ, ah well. And it looks like it's going to force me to switch to this google accounts thing. Lovely. One more login and password to set up and remember.

Writing has been unproductive of late. My own fault. Simply a lack of concentration. Novel edits were going well until I hit a wall. Have to shift a few things around and am not quite sure how I want to go about it just yet. And so it sits while I figure it out. Two new fanfic pieces are going considerably better, but they're not hopping either, merely plugging along. And how exactly does it all work out so prolifically during nano, anyway? Sigh.

New words!

I've been editing novel and working with established storylines for so long, that it felt positively refreshing to write the beginnings to not one, but two new stories today. Got about 800 words on each. And on the second story, another large chunk of plot fell in place, one that's perfectly tragically horrible, but it explains all sorts of things I had planned for later in the story, but couldn't figure out exactly how to get there. Now, I know. It will not make readers happy, it doesn't make me happy, but of course, it all delights me no end anyway.

famous last words

They say you don't remember the pain of writing a story after it's over. And it's true. You don't. The pain fades quickly and all you're left with is a shiny spread of words to savor. How long or how hard it took to get them no longer matters.

But that knowledge is not helping during the writing of this particular story.

I'll take that one, over there

So, I've been sort of working on all three novels, kind of alternating one then the other, waiting for the "this one NOW!" spark to hit, and, as expected, it's DTD. So, started getting seriously into the edits on it last night.

I'm on the first pass, which is namely: yanking all excess wordage, flagging sections that need to go, and putting notes in on new stuff that needs to go in. Pass two will be writing the new material. Pass three will be making the whole thing shiny. Then it'll need a beta reader or two to make sure I didn't break anything new, then it is declared done. I'm figuring two months, maybe less, with March 15th my current deadline to polished final draft.

off and running

So, I started editing one of my novels today. It's nearly 145,000 words long, and 45,000 of those words need to go. Yanking the unnecessary stuff is actually way easier on this particular work than I thought it'd be, mostly because this draft has been completed for over five years, and I'm a very different writer nowadays than I was then. The story's still sound, but can you say bloated prose? I didn't touch it in all that time either, which makes it about as fresh as this one can get.

This is a novel that I've struggled with the beginning, because I originally felt I couldn't jump into the action without setting a few things up first. The beta readers all said once they hit chapter two, they couldn't put it down from there, but chapter one, that all important chapter one, bored them. So, there's the "swap chapter one and chapter two" theory, which I toyed with and don't like (or haven't figured out how to make work). There's the "throw out chapter one entirely and just let her rip" approach. Or there's something between those two. But on that subject, I read number 5 of this post today, which made me rethink what I need to do to the beginning. Again.

And I really liked this consise post from Elizabeth Bear today on narrative tension. I was talking recently with a non-writer friend on why they can't put down some books, and wish I'd read her post first. Then I would have had words (dilemma, escalation, resolution) and an easy example to explain it properly. My take was much more long-winded.

So, I've been wondering how much writing I want to push myself to do right now. The year ahead originally looked to be more of a editing year, but now it looks like it's shaping up to be editing AND new stuff too. I've committed to writing a story a month for my sister, due on or about the 15th of each month. So that'll be 12 new flash or short stories this year.

I briefly thought about doing this too. It's only 750 words a day, it's a deadline, I've got a bunch of friends doing it, so there's that peer pressure thing to help keep things on track.... The only thing holding me back is that I tend to devote heavily to projects, and I'm not sure how much I want to split my brain up into a new project while I edit the older ones. I'm not the best writing multi-tasker in the world. And I don't exactly need a new project when I've got three others needing editing and a fourth that needs to be finished. Still, going to spend tonight contemplating which project I would write for the new novel, or if I'd rather just focus on editing.

Plans

So, today I cleared the nano-chart off my whiteboard (where I kept track of daily word totals) and wrote down the writing projects I want to finish instead. Helps to look at their titles every time I walk into the kitchen. They're running constantly around in my head, but this gives me focus, and I can give them deadlines and keep track of progress.

Since nano, I've been mostly reading. Reading reading reading. Three novels down, working on a fourth now, a bunch of short stories, some biographical non-fiction. And, as usual, with so many words floating around in it, my brain is coming up with new stuff. And, as usual, the new stuff is little bits and images, a bunch of unconnected bubbles floating around, waiting for the links that will turn them into stories.

Completed Nano last night

What a different experience this nano was. What a pain in the rump this nano was.

Lesson 1. Do not attempt a complicated novel when you don't understand what you're doing yet.

Lesson 2. If you don't know where you're going or how even to accomplish it in a non-linear story, do not expect the story to just write itself.

Lesson 3. Do not attempt stories that require a lot of research without actually doing the research prior to nano.

Lesson 4. You can still write 50,000 words while not knowing what you're doing.

Lesson 5. Those words will be crap.

Been neglecting this journal

Only 13,000 words left to go to finish nano's demands. I've wanted to quit innumerable times. Not quite sure what's kept me going. Most of the actual writing I've done will be tossed out immediately upon rewrite. This nano's not like last year, where I could concentrate and wrote quite a bit I liked in the first draft. This go around is really like doing an expanded novel outline with dialogue. It's a load of crap. That's okay, and I'm cool with that. At least I know what happens in the story now, and I know what I don't like and what needs to change. I haven't had the same level of excitement I had last year towards the work. I care, but in a different way. Maybe because it's three novellas instead of one narrative. Because just when I got attached to the characters, I finished and had to move on to a new set. Because I'm unhappy with the p.o.v.s. Because I don't know how to work in the things that have to be there yet. Because it's so hard.

And yet, it's funny. Because when I had the choice early on this nano to drop this one and pick up the first book of the fantasy trilogy instead, my only thought was, but what's the point? This new book raises the bar for me, and nothing will be the same after it. I still like that other fantasy story, but if I ever write it now, it has to be reimagined into something different. It's so... straight-forward. A good exciting story, sure, but nothing distinguishes it from a hundred other good stories. And this is the problem with growing older, watching your writing and ideas mature. Sometimes you just can't go back.