Sunday, September 12, 2010

When the dust settles....

So it's been almost a week, since I finished draft 1 and in that time I've made some intense discoveries, bigger than the edit problems from the last post. Mostly I'm just excited to dive back into the story, but this time I wanted more of a game plan. Don't get me wrong, there was something totally and completely freeing about writing without a plan, but it shows. The draft shows there was a no real plan except this thing called a Blue Light and it's important--sort of.

First drafts to me seem to be the messiest forms. They are just me putting pen to paper or perhaps pounding out words on a keyboard. Its a time for my imagination to say, here go for it, take me somewhere new. Explain the world around me. Ready, set, go!

There are portions that are fabulous I want to keep them just as they are, but there are more sections where I am like "dear God what was I thinking!" Before I jump head long into a semester of intense edits I wanted to see what I had come up with. Where were my characters, the setting, and how about that thing called plot?

I tore into the 79 page document without the use of a red pen. That's right no editing, I wanted to know exactly where I stood. Six pages of outline later I know that I am knee deep in mud. It's better than being chest deep, but still problematic. I see the potholes and can start to fill them in and the places where characters sort of re-hash conversations, which two of them I think will just continue to do otherwise they wouldn't talk to one another.

I feel tat now I understand some of my characters journeys better. At least where they go emotionally, and how to pick those up. Some scenes to flesh out and others that most definitely need to be added in the next draft. Now onto the post-its to start to fill in those gaps!

Any editing suggestions? Red pens, colored ink, post-its, hard copy, computer docs?

Monday, September 6, 2010

I will END you.

Well maybe not you personally, but my story yes. Let me be the first to shout this, well not shout as that would disturb my roommate, but story you are finished. Well okay that's a lie to, sort of. First draft you are done. Ahhhh it feels amazing!

Official completion time was 12:24. Yes done last word typed. Sentence finished. Story you are now officially a baby and no longer an embryo.

Let me be the first to admit this novel is only the second one that I have finished. For my own sake, I will not tell you how many I've started. The first draft has so many problems I don't even want to think about it. That ending. This missing scene. That part where it is all narrated by one person for like ten pages (there are three). Oops. But I pull my art teachers words close: the first line you draw will be wrong, so get over it and draw that line. So my first draft well there's a lot of wrong but it's written.

Now my favorite part: editing! I know but I am so excited to get back into the novel that it's crazy. I took most of the afternoon off--at least off from writing--I still had to get my room ready for school and stuff. Had dinner with a friend and then back to the grind stone.

Editing problem number one: where is this going? That is the biggest question, I wrote so much of this story in chunks the flow is like a bad headache. I feel sorry for my crit partner some days. It's just so, well it is the numero uno problem and it will be fixed. I sat down and started to jot down each scene in the novel, whose POV, what happens, what do the readers learn about others about the world, and what about plot?

I'm about 30 pages in with that and notice there needs to be soooo much more but it will come, I'm making some notes to self and getting down to it.

Editing problem number two: did someone say voice? Cause I'm pretty sure while I have three voices and they are all extremely distinct in the beginning they sort of mesh together somewhere in the middle. So, looking through and fixing those pesky problems

Can I say, dreading dreading dreading?

Editing problem number three: teen angst. Enough said.

I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!

Okay now that that's out of my system....I'm off to bed which is good because school starts tomorrow and the craziness that is my life will ensue once more.

Tata!