Next steps

I finished Writing the Breakout Novel over the weekend. Excellent book, lots of good advice. I have even made lots of notes and dreamed up several new story elements while I read it, even before moving on to the workbook.

And now I’m scared. There’s a lot involved. I have never actually written a whole book before. Can I pull this off?

Tension and conflict on every page. That’s one of the first “rules” mentioned in the book. Every page? Really? I don’t have that. Actually, I have more of it than I realized (I’ve been doing a little rereading), but I don’t have it on every page. In a lot of places, I can see where I can add it in. In some places, I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do.

I am wavering back and forth. I have about 60,000 handwritten words on this story already. And I think I might need to just start over from the beginning. But I think there are good bits. So what to do?

Pardon me while I talk out loud here in a sense. I wonder if it would be useful to go through what I’ve already written and do a synopsis of it, marking what I find to be the really good bits? And then I can do a synopsis for the ending so I know what exactly I want to do and then do the rewrite.

Wow! I think this is actually a really good plan! It’s the best of both worlds, and I am very, very excited. (Oh yes, the writer said “very, very.” Yes, she did. And she’s standing by it.)

I wish I could start now. But I have a long weekend away coming up. We’re leaving Thursday, and I have six million things to do. So I don’t actually have time to do what I want to do. Which is completely driving up the craving to do it.

I am going to gather my handwritten pages and a notebook and pen and set them next to the bed so that I at least have a symbolic start. And then I’m going to really make this work!

Thank you, dear readers, for being here as I worked through this idea. I shall definitely keep you posted…

And one last note…next week, because of the long weekend, I will probably be doing my post on Thursday rather than Tuesday. Stay tuned!

Temporary Schedule Shift

Once again, I find myself needing to apologize for skipping posts. My schedule—or rather my lack of ability to organize it efficiently—kept me overly busy.

For the time being, I am going to change my posting schedule. I am planning to take some time to make contacts and build a readership, and then I will return to the twice weekly posting schedule. Meanwhile, I will be back to regular posts but on a once-a-week schedule starting next week on Tuesday.

Until then, here's a quote from Writing the Breakout Novel:

"Marshalling detail and learning the art of writing in nouns and verbs are essential to success in any type of writing. That is especially true in the breakout novel. An expansive setting is not vague. It is highly particular. But while a breakout setting is closely observed, it also has a wide focus.

The breakout novelist does not merely set a scene; she unveils a unique place, one resonant with a sense of time, woven through with social threads and full of the destinies the universe has in store for us all. She does not merely describe a setting, she builds a world. She then sets her characters free in that world to experience all it has to offer."

Reading About Writing

Work on my studio continues. I can feel it becoming more inviting, more of a writing and crafting and art space all the time. Of course, over the past few days I’ve only moved a couple of bits of furniture (and I’m still not happy with my printer placement, darn it!) and picked out a rug (which is currently in stock in Seattle but not Portland, so there may be a road trip in my near future). And perused bookcase designs to show my beloved so he can decide what to build for me! But I can still feel it growing into my space, my very own place for writing and creating and being. I love that room! The one that already exists and the one that is building itself in my mind…

I wasn’t actually going to write about the studio today, but I’m rather giddy over it. After living in that house for four years, it is exciting to finally be able to start getting things the way we want them.

I was actually going to write a bit about writing books today. I am currently browsing through several and actually reading Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel. And yesterday my new issue of Writers’ Digest arrived, and it’s now sitting on the coffee table waiting for me to delve into it.

Do I need to read more writing books, learn more craft, get more knowledge? Well, we can always learn more, there’s always something new, a different take on things, so reading more books certainly won’t hurt me. I usually find that I pick up at least one or two good ideas for new ways to do things when I read craft books and articles and blogs, so it’s definitely not a waste of time on that front. But I don’t actually need them particularly—I’m pretty sure I have enough knowledge and imagination in me to do the job sufficiently well.

What I get out of reading these books is more of a connection to my craft. When I read writing books, my focus stays on writing. My attention stays on crafting stories, plotting, outlining, creating characters. And when I read writing books, I feel a sort of connection to other writers. I can read a paragraph and say, “Yeah, me too! That’s what I do!” I feel like I’m one of the gang, like there are people out there rooting for me. And possibly the best part—when I read books on writing, my motivation rises. Story ideas well up, insisting on being acknowledged and recorded. I find myself excited and immersed in story and ready to pick up my pen. It’s really not a bad payoff for a few minutes of my time and a few pages of text.

Shoring up the foundations

I am reworking Blood of the Mist. Not rewriting it, not doing revisions. Reworking it. From the beginning. Sigh…

It is necessary. The story needs it. This is a really good story idea, so it deserves everything I can put into it. But there’s a lot of the work I’ve done so far that is going to get thrown out. Well, probably just tucked away in a box somewhere, but it will be thrown out of the story.

Hard as that is, I can feel that it’s the right thing to be doing. I really need more depth in my planning, more knowledge about my characters and their motivations, more of a vision of my world. I didn’t spend nearly enough time doing the pre-writing stuff. I was getting ready for NaNoWriMo, so I was in a rush, especially because I didn’t start planning until mid-October. Definitely not enough time. And so here I am, practically starting over because of my rush job last Fall.

It’s really okay, though. All of the things I’ve written so far are useful, even if they don’t end up in the final version. They’ve led me closer to knowing what the story is going to be. I have a clearer idea of what the story needs. This is all good stuff, so I really can’t consider what I’ve done so far as wasted time. But it is time to move forward again.

Right now, I am using some of the exercises out of Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (one of the writing tools I bought with my stimulus check) to help me delve more deeply into my characters and my plot layers. I think working through these, taking the time to actually do the exercises instead of just reading through a few of them, is going to lead me to a much better story, so even though I am a little frustrated, what I am doing now is going to end up being time well spent. Now, I think I’ll get back to spending it.