Post by Flatiron on Jun 29, 2011 10:27:56 GMT -5
Hey everyone!
As I noted in my reintro for the month, I’m half way to getting the critical first edit done on my project. The drafted novel, done in two wrimos in a row, is just about 400 pages long (130k words), and was the first time that I’d ever completed a wrimo, much less doing it for two months to get to a first draft “The End.” So, as painful as it is (since there is a joy in writing new stuff that I miss!) now I’m trying to do a first pass edit on the thing to create a synopsis of every scene (to be put in Scrivener so that I can see what I’ve got) and to track the promises made in the story to see if they are fulfilled (with an eye towards balancing that by either fulfilling them or removing them, whichever makes the story stronger).
This is one hell of a challenge. Moreso because I discovered the story as I wrote it, which means there are either some great twists in the story, or several different books that may not hold together. They say that you need to learn to kill your darlings, and I’m stuck with a novel that I don’t want to show anyone because some of the ideas in it, which are quite speculative (It’s a supernatural thriller with a psychedelic twist! ) , are near and dear to me. I heard a great podcast on this the other day that put it this way: you get stuck with the reality that your writing skills may not be as good as you want them to be for the piece you are working on. The only thing to do is to push through, keep working it, and then move on.
So, here I am, moving forward, and with any luck, if I meet my goals, I’ll be at the 3/4ths mark by the end of the month. Who knew it would take this long to edit? But, of course, I’m just learning how to do this… and that is my question for myself: can I take this thing through the entire process? I’m here answering that question, day by day, month by month.
And, as I said in my intro for last month, here I go back into that ethereal netherworld where stories (brought to us by our genius, see the video I posted! www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html ) come to life.
Write on!
-Flatiron
As I noted in my reintro for the month, I’m half way to getting the critical first edit done on my project. The drafted novel, done in two wrimos in a row, is just about 400 pages long (130k words), and was the first time that I’d ever completed a wrimo, much less doing it for two months to get to a first draft “The End.” So, as painful as it is (since there is a joy in writing new stuff that I miss!) now I’m trying to do a first pass edit on the thing to create a synopsis of every scene (to be put in Scrivener so that I can see what I’ve got) and to track the promises made in the story to see if they are fulfilled (with an eye towards balancing that by either fulfilling them or removing them, whichever makes the story stronger).
This is one hell of a challenge. Moreso because I discovered the story as I wrote it, which means there are either some great twists in the story, or several different books that may not hold together. They say that you need to learn to kill your darlings, and I’m stuck with a novel that I don’t want to show anyone because some of the ideas in it, which are quite speculative (It’s a supernatural thriller with a psychedelic twist! ) , are near and dear to me. I heard a great podcast on this the other day that put it this way: you get stuck with the reality that your writing skills may not be as good as you want them to be for the piece you are working on. The only thing to do is to push through, keep working it, and then move on.
So, here I am, moving forward, and with any luck, if I meet my goals, I’ll be at the 3/4ths mark by the end of the month. Who knew it would take this long to edit? But, of course, I’m just learning how to do this… and that is my question for myself: can I take this thing through the entire process? I’m here answering that question, day by day, month by month.
And, as I said in my intro for last month, here I go back into that ethereal netherworld where stories (brought to us by our genius, see the video I posted! www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html ) come to life.
Write on!
-Flatiron