Sunday, February 20, 2005

This Last Writing Week

I've now rewritten 6 and a half chapters.  The last 3 were almost a complete rewrite.  I keep telling myself that when the novel is actually completed I'll have less rewriting to do.  But that's the part I enjoy so it doesn't comfort me.

It's been a struggle not to go on the Inernet to ostensibly look up things.  We all know where that leads.  One thing to another.  Each day I promise myself that I won't do that.  I might have to check something out through Gurunet but I don't have to go any farther once I get my answer.  Still, I continue to do it.

I don't launch my email program but if I launch my browser, Mozilla, I can see my email from my home page.  Ok, so I don't answer it.  That's the only thing I resist.

I have to stop all that.  I have to get down to work.  I can't get distracted.  If I want to do these things I'll do them after I finish writing.  This is my vow for the coming week.

Even with all my diversions I think I know more than I did.  I might even know by now (page 80) who did it.  And why.  I have a lot of rewriting and changing of things ahead of me.  There are 5 more chapters to go before I get to write a new chapter.  Actually, there may not be that many because I took things from 10 and put them in 7.  And I may have to lose two characters all together.  But then I'll be adding a character who will get at least half a chapter.  She was dead in my first version.  How heady it is to bring someone back to life!

I know the prose I'm writing now is fairly lifeless.  I also know I can change that later so I'm not letting it worry me too much.  All in all it's been a battle.  I don't recall going through this before. Oh, I've been in despair at times, but I never had this kind of trouble. 

I just realized that I killed the wrong person again having done that once before in a YA book, Playing Murder, but I caught that one at around 100 pages.  This time I didn't know I'd done it until I started rewriting.

It's caused me a lot of trouble.  And other things have too...all those corners I got myself into.  As it stands now there aren't any. 

I keep wondering if ,without those corners am I writing a dull book?  And then I remember they were corners I couldn't do anything about.  I might get into some new ones as I go along and can only hope that they'll be ones I can write my way out of.

Those of you who've read my blog before know that I take any holiday I can.  I mean, how could I possibly write on Presidents' Day?

Is this book dull?  Is this book dull?  Is this book dull?

 

2 comments:

Lee Goldberg said...

The more I read about your troubles, the more I believe in outlines. I usually have the struggles you're going through in the outline phase of either a script or a book... which makes the writing a lot less stressful (though I almost always rework the story along the way).

Anonymous said...

I agree with Lee. I outline the heck out of everything I write (be it fic or nonfic, speech or essay or novel). And I always end up straying but at least it gives me a general path to work from and keeps me moving.