novels

Revision update

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I know I set a deadline of Nov. 1st for revising my novel, but I kinda forgot I’d be out of commission during Sukkot. Now, I’m paying the price.
My tush is asleep. My tailbone is rebelling.
I really want to finish by Tuesday night, but I’m finding the chair at my computer so painful (despite yoga and 600 mg ibuprofen every 6 hours), I’m not sure I’m going to make it. Plus, every time I look at what I’ve already written and supposedly revised, I keep finding more things I don’t like. Ugh.
Self-doubt sets in. Maybe it’s no good after all.
I’m going to try to finish, anyway. What if I spend the next 20 years kicking myself about “that novel I wrote, but never finished…”?

Chugging away

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(photo by RJ Stew on Flickr)
I’ve decided to set a goal for myself: rewrite the rough draft of my novel in entirety and hand over to my trusted reviewers by November 1st. Hopefully, a deadline will keep me chugging away.
After the research I did last week, I’ve decided to do a “two pass” method. First I went through the whole thing and made sweeping changes to the structure, made characters, plot points, and themes consistent all the way through, etc. Now I’m doing a line-by-line edit.
I’m very excited but very nervous. What if everyone hates it? What it everyone loves it but no one will print it?

[Reminding myself to reframe:
It doesn’t have to be perfect, just the best I can do right now (thanks Holly Lisle).]

And now comes the hard part

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I’m preparing to revise the novel-in-progress.

Many bloggers have recommended the “One Pass Method” of Holly Lisle. For details, see: http://hollylisle.com/how-to-revise-a-novel/ which tries to do everything in one fell swoop from beginning to end.

Others suggest a longer process, saying their revisions take longer than writing their first draft. Yikes! Just the idea makes me want to hyperventilate.
I’ll update you on my trevails. I’m taking a breather for a few days and working on other projects.

I DID IT!

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Yes, it’s true! I finally finished my first novel. Hooray! Of course, I was supposed to finish by Labor Day, and it’s probably pretty terrible, and it’s shorter than I intended, but it’s done. It’s just a first draft…but a complete first draft! And the longest thing I’ve ever written. (I never realized before how it takes a long time to print an entire novel.)
I’m in shock right now. All my nearest and dearest are in bed right now, so I’ll just blog and get to bed.

Almost (but only almost!)

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(photo by Ian Britton)

Well, my goal for the summer was to finish my first solo effort at a novel and…I didn’t quite finish.

Ugh.

I’m probably just 3,000 words shy of a complete first draft. After ditching my original draft of “Part 3,” I had a good think and outlined a new path for the rest of the book. However, I’m having problems bringing myself to sit down and finish.

What’s my excuse? Instead of spending quality time with my keyboard, I’ve been spending quality time with humans (my husband and kids, now back in school), and I’ve been actively looking for more freelance work.  I finished a writing project last week and submitted something else. It’s not like I’ve been wasting time doing nothing. On the other hand, I have wasted a lot of time blogging, reading weird science news (justifying it as research), and listening to music that’s too noisy for effectively focusing on a computer screen.

It’s time for a completely non-professional attempt at psychoanalyzing myself. I definitely need to figure out why I don’t just sit down for a couple nights and crank out the rest so I can get over it.

1) I used to write for fun. It was relaxing, and even escapist. I still love writing. I’m still very enthusiastic about this project. However, writing has been reclassified in my brain over the last 9 months as a professional exercise and not a hobby. It’s actually work.

2) I think I’m a little freaked out about finishing the first draft because I know it will be…a first draft. Like, not perfect. Like, potentially terrible. I guess I have to just accept that it will start out that way, but trust that it’ll eventually improve.

Drat!

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As I mentioned before, one of my objectives for the summer has been to complete a first draft of a novel. Make that my weird Jewish, sci-fi, teenage parable. So I was cruising along, having outlined and then fleshing out first part one, then part two, and then got 3000-ish words into part three…when I realized that part three didn’t belong in this book! Yikes. Now I’m trying to decide just what is the real part three that belongs to this book.
I’m not entirely stuck–I’ve added additional materials to part one and two this week (including some borrowed from the now-defunct part three)–and have worked on another couple writing projects, to boot. However, I’m starting to fear I will not finish by Labor Day. I’m starting to fear I will never finish. (Insert image here of me imitating the little boy in the photo at the top of this post.)
I need to decide where I want to go with this book, but the idea of being stuck is giving me such anxiety that I think it’s actually making me more stuck. Usually, I’m not the writer’s block type…but this might be it.
I’m going to go practice some deep breathing now…