Worderella Writes

Checking In

Hello everyone!

Yes, I am alive. I apologize for my absence. Graduate school takes up far more time than I realized, and now I am working full-time in an internship that requires too much of my creativity… I come home exhausted yet satisfied.

Loyalty Contest

I realize I’ve probably lost a lot of my readership, so if you’re still around, thank you for sticking with me. Make sure to comment and tell everyone what you’ve been up to lately. One of the commenters will receive a free copy of my “best of” book, Worderella On Writing.

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Surface Edits

I’m plugging away at the final surface edits for Trentwood’s Orphan during my winter break from graduate school. It’s fast-going, and I’m surprisingly pleased with how the story is coming together. There are, of course, some chapters that got a little jumbled, but I assume that’s because not only was I retyping the entire book after hand-editing it, but I was converting from present-to-past tense at the same time. As such, some of my tenses got a little weird.

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Second Draft Complete

As of Sunday at four in the afternoon, I finished writing the second draft of First Draft B. These are the specs…

The goal was to write 85,000 words, thus cutting out what I suspected was 10k words of fluff from First Draft B. It came out to 84,921, and that wasn’t planned. Very pleased.

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What Happens to an Author When She Finishes Editing?

Last week, I finished the paper edits of First Draft B. Cue the fanfare, tears of happiness, and confetti. Now it’s time to pull off the gloves and re-type the entire thing with the new edits to see what we’ve got. And so begins the Second Draft.

Now, there are multiple things an author feels once she or he gets past another stage in the writing process…

• Fear that what you wrote stinks beyond belief.
• Elation that you finished it, you really finished it.
• Depressed that at some point, you’re going to have to let someone else read it and tell you exactly what they think about it.
• Proud that, upon reading over it, you like more than you hate.

I know some of you are reading this now because of my editing workshop, and I bet you’re wondering if I followed my own advice.

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Stumbling Blocks, Workshops, and a Contest

“Nobody’s perfect, I gotta work it again and again ’til I get it right…”
Nobody’s Perfect sung by Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus

Well, Hannah Montana’s right on the money with this one. This song should be the theme for all writers in the editing phase.

I’m holding an online editing workshop next week to contribute to Lynn Viehl’s Left Behind & Loving It (LB&LI) convention. I’ll tackle a different facet of editing each day. At the end of the week, I’ll give a free critique of the first three chapters (or the first 50 pages, whichever is shorter) of one commenter whose name I will pull from a hat.

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Paper Evidence of a Writer’s Mind

I briefly mentioned, a little while ago, that I have a paper journal. This past year, my paper journal has been a lifesaver, especially when I had to drastically cut back the number of hours I sat hunched over a computer. I mean, there was a time where sitting in one spot for ten minutes would cause pain. No good for programming or writing.

So I turned to a paper journal, which I could write in while laying on my stomach and giving my back/legs a break. I’ve never been able to fill a paper journal, and I blame that on the journal. Really, I do. Because the journal I have now, just looking at it inspires me to write. The paper is smooth, with large lines so I can write new ideas between sentences. The cover has a magnetic seal, but lays flat when open. And, in the newest journal, I decided to draw a bit. Below are a couple of pictures of my journal.

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First Draft B Complete

The title of the post says it all, but here are some details.

Saturday night, I couldn’t focus on homework. So instead, I daydreamed about my novel.

At midnight, I decided I would tape the show I had been staying up to watch so I could write, instead.

By three in the morning, I had a draft of the last chapter that I liked better than the six other half-starts I’d saved in the file, and the other almost fully-drafted chapter that I had in my paper journal.

Sunday morning, I woke up to re-read the chapter and found I still liked it. A good sign.

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WIP: A New Beginning

A little over a week ago, I added a new scene to the beginning of the WIP. It shifts the moment when the reader joins the story from the original scene to fifteen minutes earlier. Amazing, what a quarter of an hour can do, right? This new scene completely changes the tone of the opening chapter, yet still is in keeping with the tone of the entire work. My problem is that I feel the original scene also sets the story and tone correctly. Which should I choose?

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WIP: Dragging my Feet

Am I the only one whose writing slows to a sluggish halt as the finish line approaches? I’m terrified of everything seeming like a deus ex machina, so I’m fighting to make sure nothing is too easy, and that everything depends on the characters. Which means I’m leaving a lot of notes in this draft for the editing phase about dropping hints here and there in the character’s actions so that things make sense, that everything is building up to the end.

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WIP: A Writing Update

No April Fool’s today, just a quick shout-out to my mother (it’s her birthday!), an announcement, and a long-overdue post about my WIP.

If you visited the blog recently, you noticed that the WIP counter on my sidebar has suddenly changed from 82k, a mere 3% away from my 85k goal, to 87k. Admission time: I’ve been past the 85k goal since the beginning of March. I didn’t want to change my progress counter until I actually finished First Draft B, which is silly, but true. I haven’t finished it, but I can see the finish line.

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