Still Winging It

A love triangle of sorts, two tangled storms (moral and epidemiological) and an oddly compelling river. Not quite lightening in a bottle, but worth sprinting to the finish. Actually, as usual, I think I wrote the ending (or an ending) first.

I have no idea if it will work. It goes against all my usual instincts, but I’m churning out ungrammatical, contextually vague pages, not even pausing to figure out setting. I’m a polisher. I’ve never written this quickly before. Never written without flexing my editorial muscles for this long, but…I seem to be cobbling together a plotline…I supposedly write pretty prose, but truth be told, I really just spend a lot of energy cleaning up my original mess.

I spent five years on the last book and ended up with an uneven mess. Some sections “perfect” others like a trail of never-ending vomit. (When will this stench finally end?)

Now the only question is who can I find to read this mess when the vomit draft is finally done? It will have to be a very special kind of reader….

Now back to ghosts, goulies, and god and goddess-ridden skies.

Tags: new writing

So are you trying to get feedback on your book? Not happy with the generic “it’s good honey” your spouse murmurs after a eight minute glanceover? A little let down by the “those ten pages were brillant” gush from your workshop partner? Looking for someone who will actually read the entire mammoth stack of pages?

Well, as it turns out, teenage girls make the best readers — brainy, booking-reading omnivores anyway. They have the time (at least while on vacation). They have the interest (remember that book-a-day phase that only dissipated after you became a mother, father, full-time worker?). And best of all, they are relatively easy to find.

Actually, I had the luxury of someone finding them for me. It was brillant. Send them them the book, give them a list of questions, and wait for the amazing brutal feedback.

One thing to remember. They, of course, need to be bribed. Afterall, they do know their worth.

Tags: critique

I feel like hell — ego, hope, sanity all in tatters.  What a mere thirty minutes can do…. 

I added up the word count of my current draft  of The Storyman then figured out how much editing was left.  Sounds good right?  Well it turns out I’ve been telling myself the most outragous lies.  Only a few chapters left Julie.  Three-quarters done.  Try 42% left to go.

I’ve decided to keep track of my editing progress here for all to see.  I’ll be posting the little graph below on a weekly basis. 

Plus, of course, there are the plot points to adjust, the chapters I know need writing, and….I’ll share the rest of this particular horror story in a future post along wth the spreadsheet I’m using to keep myself on task.  

51577 / 88692 words. 58% done!

Tags: editing, widgets, writing tools

Titles, it turns out, require desperation (at least for me).  After dodging numerous titling disasters, I’d fallen on hard times and actually retitled the book WIP.  Every day when I opened a chapter and started work, there it would be “WIP”… at least until the Viable Paradise Writers’ Workshop came along.   The application required an electronic copy that included the title in the file name.  And suddenly with less than a day to put it all together I had a new plot point and a title — The Storyman. 

Bedtime stories told by a vampire to his foster son.  Of course.  I’m actually stuttering through the first half of the first fairy tale.

Score one for deadlines.

Tags: titles, Viable Paradise, workshop submissions, writing progress

Tags: blogging, the novel, writing