Works in Progress
First draft:
Editing: The Amulet of Sìochàin
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| Second Draft Defeated! |
| Wednesday, 09 June 2010 19:32 |
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Yes. Finally. I got to the end of the second draft. It came in at a total word count of 103394, which I'm very happy with. So now I'm going to put it to bed for a week, and leave it alone. I may play about with some collaging for another novel idea, but then again, I may not. I might just concentrate on the Creativity Workshop for a few days. Then, at the end of next week, I'll print off my manuscript again and start making the smaller changes - moving words around rather than whole scenes. I'm fairly confident that the structure is pretty much all in place now - there may be a few small modifications to make, but overall, I think the story itself is now in pretty decent shape. It's taken me far longer than I anticipated to reach this point, but honestly, that's okay. What's that saying - anything worth doing well is worth taking your time over? Well, I've certainly done the latter. Hopefully the first part is at least vaguely applicable too. So, with that done, I actually have the time to address the questions Merrilee posed in her How are you doing? post, and now seems like a pretty appropriate time to do so. Even if it has taken me two days to do it. 1. Creativity1a. Am I doing my daily creativity exercises?I had been doing really well at this, but when I stopped working on my short stories, I also stopped doing the idea generation exercises every morning. It only took me a few days to realise that I actually really missed doing it. I haven't yet had anything overly remarkable appear on the pages of my notebook from them, but they were getting me into a generally more creative frame of mind, and after a few days of not doing them I realised my other writing was suffering because of it. So now I'm back on the wagon, so to speak. 1b. How full is my notebook? I finished my first one, and I'm a few pages into the second one. Okay, they're only Pop Notes books, but they're perfect for carrying around with me, and there are 50 pages in each one. I'm using them for my idea generation, and also for taking notes on blog posts - mainly the ones from the workshop, but also from other blogs I follow when something of particular interest comes up. When Merrilee has set exercises to do, I've used it for those as well. 1c. Do I look around me and collect inspiration as I go about my day? I think so, some of the time, but it's usually from objects and places rather than people. I need to work harder at people watching and using those observations - I suspect my character development would really benefit from that. 1d. Am I looking for inspiration, instead of waiting for it to appear? I've noticed that my gaze will fall on something, and I'm almost automatically asking myself the "What if...?" questions Merrilee mentioned on her More ideas than you can write blog post. That feels pretty good, and I'm really very happy about it. 2. Focus2a. Am I examining ideas that excite me?Not really, to be honest. But then I have been trying to focus hard on my revisions, so maybe this will start to change now. 2b. Have I found a particular genre or topic that really means something to me? Fantasy is my genre of choice, always has been. Lately I've found myself working family issues into my stories a lot, and I do find that fascinating. 2c. Is my exploration leading me to new outlets for my creativity, or do I feel like I am going in circles? Hmm, not sure about the new outlets, unless short stories in general count. And they're not entirely new. But I don't feel like I'm going in circles - I have felt lately as if I'm on a neverending path with my revisions, but that's different. I knew I was moving forward, it was just slow. 2d. Am I finding it easier to concentrate on a project on-demand, or do I get distracted easily? I'm usually pretty good about sitting down to write, but I do tend to work in spurts - I'll write a scene and then go and check Facebook/Twitter/blogs for a while. I'd like to work on writing for longer periods at a time - I know I can do it, but I'm not doing it regularly enough. Timing myself helps - I guess I need to start increasing the length of time on Write or Die! 3. Productivity3a. How many stories have I started?Three so far. 3b. How many stories have I completed? I've completed first drafts of all three, though they will need editing - especially the third one, which rambled and meandered a lot! This is the second week I've skipped, but every week I've tried, I have managed to finish the story. 3c. Am I writing as often as I could be? Probably not, but I am writing nearly every day. The last week or so I've been skipping my evening sessions, which is bad - and silly too, since I feel so much better when I do fit them in. 3d. Do I bring the story to mind every day, even when I’m not writing? I've definitely been doing this with my novel - I think I was doing it with the short stories too, but can't honestly remember! 4. Goals4a. Am I meeting my goals?I think overall I am. As I've said, it took longer than expected to meet my novel goal, but it's done now. And I made a conscious decision not to push myself to do the short stories for this week and last, so I don't really feel like I've failed at that. 4b. Do I remember what my goals are? I think so! 4c. Do my goals reflect my desires and where I want to go as a writer? Yes, I think they do - my overriding goal is to get my novel to the query stage, and my goals for the Creativity Workshop are all about exploring different avenues and techniques to see what works for me. 4d. Am I keeping my goals in mind whenever I get excited by a new project? This hasn't really come up so far - there are too many things already in the works. But I am keeping my goals in mind as I decide which parts to focus on. There. I think that's a long enough post for now. Today I'm going to start work on some of Merrilee's exercises on integral settings. Tomorrow, who knows. I'm taking it easy for a couple if days! |
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