Yeah, you heard me. I said that. (Actually, Saboo said that, but I appropriated it which makes it mine.)
Crunchy have been my dreams of late! But my fingers remembered their old strength better once they'd grasped my keyboard, so that's what I've been up to. The mighty revision process! More of a proto-revision process, because the first draft of The Book isn't actually finished yet. I'm just revising what I've got (which is 187 pages of manuscript) so that I can write the last five chapters or so knowing that they'll actually match up with the previous twenty-three. I solved the broken world problem by adding two decades to the timeline. This may turn out to be too much, so I may bump it back to fifteen years or ten. Because I am the master of time and space, God to my characters!
They've been behaving, which pleases me, because that means that I've portrayed them with enough depth to really know them. It's a bad time for an author when a character goes flat--they lose direction, then, and wander off to do unpleasant things in the corner. I've come to understand "resistance"--that phenomenon where the story grinds to halt and refuses to be written in a way that feels right and proper--as a problem of character. If things aren't going well, look first to the members of your cast, and find the one who's not well drawn and three-dimensional. If they're all nicely rounded, then identify the one that's being forced to do something out of character. And if everybody's got depth and is doing what they'd naturally do, then perhaps you don't have enough conflict for a story. Have them start hitting each other with sticks until something presents itself.
The routine itself isn't particularly interesting: put thirty pages of manuscript in the manuscript stand, commence typing, pause occasionally to chew on a particular word or phrase, and--even more rarely--enjoy the opportunity to rewrite an entire scene or add a new one. So far I've added about seven new pages out of 157 or so, scattered throughout the story in various paragraphs and sentences. I think it's working, but I'm looking forward to finishing this part of it and getting on with the final wrap-up. It's new territory, for me: The End. I wonder what it will be like...whether I'll have pure satisfaction, or experience the terror of The Suck, or some combination of the two.
I'll let you know when I get there.
Crunchy have been my dreams of late! But my fingers remembered their old strength better once they'd grasped my keyboard, so that's what I've been up to. The mighty revision process! More of a proto-revision process, because the first draft of The Book isn't actually finished yet. I'm just revising what I've got (which is 187 pages of manuscript) so that I can write the last five chapters or so knowing that they'll actually match up with the previous twenty-three. I solved the broken world problem by adding two decades to the timeline. This may turn out to be too much, so I may bump it back to fifteen years or ten. Because I am the master of time and space, God to my characters!
They've been behaving, which pleases me, because that means that I've portrayed them with enough depth to really know them. It's a bad time for an author when a character goes flat--they lose direction, then, and wander off to do unpleasant things in the corner. I've come to understand "resistance"--that phenomenon where the story grinds to halt and refuses to be written in a way that feels right and proper--as a problem of character. If things aren't going well, look first to the members of your cast, and find the one who's not well drawn and three-dimensional. If they're all nicely rounded, then identify the one that's being forced to do something out of character. And if everybody's got depth and is doing what they'd naturally do, then perhaps you don't have enough conflict for a story. Have them start hitting each other with sticks until something presents itself.
The routine itself isn't particularly interesting: put thirty pages of manuscript in the manuscript stand, commence typing, pause occasionally to chew on a particular word or phrase, and--even more rarely--enjoy the opportunity to rewrite an entire scene or add a new one. So far I've added about seven new pages out of 157 or so, scattered throughout the story in various paragraphs and sentences. I think it's working, but I'm looking forward to finishing this part of it and getting on with the final wrap-up. It's new territory, for me: The End. I wonder what it will be like...whether I'll have pure satisfaction, or experience the terror of The Suck, or some combination of the two.
I'll let you know when I get there.
I await with bated breath, eager enthusiasm, and utter faith in your brilliance.
Now that I could stand to hear about once a week...