Re-Writing Woes

So. I’ve begun working on the prequel again, after taking a seven week hiatus to participate in NaNoWriMo and then study for Finals Week. I’m glad I took all that time off, because after reading the first three chapters I realized chapters 1 needs to be cut, chapter 2 if kept should be put after chapter 3, and chapter 3 should be the new chapter 1, but only after an extensive re-write.

Remind me why I write, again? Haha I’ve sort of been in a slight despair ever since I realized my beginning is well-written, but boring as all heck. Way too much backstory. Not enough action. I hate stories that begin with characters just sitting around talking to one another, explaining the story to the reader, and that’s exactly how this novel begins. So, I’ve decided to completely start over from scratch. Consider that first complete draft as a three-year warm-up, as it were. You might think me crazy, considering it took me three years to write almost 100,000 words, but then, you have to remember I did NaNoWriMo, and finished, so…writing another 50,000 words shouldn’t be too hard, right? Not when I know the entire story this time? And can outline what I want to keep in the story and what I want to throw out?

Is this wishful thinking?

Re-Writing Breakthrough

Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.
- Stephen King

And so I conclude my finals week with ever-happy thoughts about my original work-in-progress, The Winslow Charade. It’s funny, seeing that title, considering I just use it because it’s there, and really has nothing to do with the story anymore. In any case, I had a breakthrough the other night while I was studying. I’ve been worried about the pacing of the book. It feels too slow, especially now that I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo. So, at 2 am in the morning, I decided that I was going to shift the beginning of the story forward approximately six months. Now everything is much more condensed, and the story will have to move faster because the characters have less time to make decisions–which means more conflict, which is always, but ALWAYS, good.

I wonder whether other writers ever have mini-breakthroughs like mine? And does the world ever look a little friendlier after, like how my world does?

Apostrophes and Bibliophiles

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Scott Adams

Is it sad that I find literary posters amusing? Click [here] to see Bob the Angry Flower’s take on those dreaded apostrophe rules.

In other news, I printed my NaNoWriMo the other day at the computer lab that I work at (I print everything there because I practically have free printing, my quota is so large), and shock and awe! Somehow, I wrote 177 double-spaced pages in one month. It took me three years to write the prequel. Le sigh.

Oh, and I heard somewhere, I can’t remember where but I have this inkling it was at work, that a mother actually dissuaded her child from getting a book at Toys R’ Us because the toy was cheaper than the book. The bibliohpile in me cries aloud at this. The girl telling the story understood me, and she most emphatically said that a person should never dissuade a child from reading. I ask, why stop at children? I wish people in general would read more often. Perhaps if the people around me were more well-read (such as my neighbor, who likes to say everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that he doesn’t think is cool is “stupid”), then I’d stop worrying about whether my vocabulary is dying or not. Sometimes I worry being a computer engineer has completely drained my creative writing mind.

Anyway, I’m up this late writing because I’ve been studying for my electrical engineering final all day. Which means around midnight, I snapped, and had a solo dance party in my room to work off all my nervous energy. Which means I got my blood pressure up, and even after a quick yoga cool-down, I’m too revved up to go to sleep.

Yet, it seems that writing this last sentence triggered the Sand Man, because my second wind just blew away and I’m exhausted. Good night, you writers, and may the muse be with you.

Withdrawal

So, as you all know, I finished my first complete draft this past Friday. This means that I’ve been thinking about the novel the entire weekend, wanting to read it through, but each time, not being able to because I’m too close to the work and so can’t read it without wanting to edit it. I know how my writing mind works: I have to work and work, and then leave it alone for a couple months to be completely unassociated with it. Look at it with fresh eyes. I just love the ending, though. Not how it’s written, but the feeling of it. The mood. The atmosphere and hope.

Anyway, I’m still reading Dorian Gray. I only read it while waiting for my Folklore class, so that’s about twenty minutes a week. Otherwise I would have finished it way before now. I keep jotting little phrases I like out of it, which also takes time. Paperback Writer found a couple cool links about writing novel queries, which you can find below.

By the way, how are your projects going? What do you do once you’ve completed a draft?

Sample Query from Preditors and Editors.
Tips for Romance Queries from Terri Irene Blaine’s free Basics of Writing Romance lessons.
Another Sample Query from Kelly James-Enger.
StoryTellers Unplugged gives a good idea about what to send as a novel proposal, cover sheet etc included.

C’est Finis!

94,811 / 94,811(100.0%)

And now to my favorite part. EDITING!! Seriously, I love this part. I can go back and mold my characters, twist their subplots, add the details I didn’t want to worry about the first time around. Double-spaced, my work is 334 pages at 12pt Times New Roman. That’s insane. Of course, each new chapter starts on its own page, so that might have something to do with it. but still. I’m so excited! The ending is sort of iffy, but that’s cool. A lot can change through editing. I’m just glad I finished the first draft. Took me three years (I keep taking time off for school, work, and research!), but I’ve done it and now the editing phase begins!

Writing Update

Previous word count, as of Sept 23, 2006: 86,736.
Update:

93,504 / 100,000 (92.0%)

New Website Layout

Well, it’s official. I changed the name of this blog, and I added the domain name that will eventually be the official domain for my website: Worderella. Spent some time tonight playing with the layout and trying to make it professional, clean, and yet keeping that hint of something historical so readers don’t get confused.

So, say hello to Worderella. She welcomes your comments and suggestions.

By the way, Worderella is VERY excited to say the current novel is at 90,000+ words, and the sequel already has a pretty solid synopsis going.

Woe is I

I will admit, I’m struggling. I want to get this first complete draft out, but I can feel the doom of the Writer’s Block hovering over my left shoulder, while my muse bats away at Writer’s Block on my right. I have the entire next scene outlined. I know what should happen, I just need to write it down. But I feel…almost bored with it. This is, in general, why I don’t outline. I outline and I know what’s going to happen and I’m tired of the scene before it’s written. I’ve felt this way for the last three chapters, and I’m pretty sure they must be as boring as I’m afraid they are, even though a lot has happened. If you look at my profile page, you’ll see I’m up to 86 000 words, which is a whopping 6 – 8 000 words more than the last time I wrote about being afraid of Writer’s Block.

But I’m pushing through. I have faith in my characters that they will lead me true, and I’m hoping that when I leave the story alone for three months (which will inevitably happen now that the quarter is starting up), I will return to find gems rather than dirt in my prose.

[6pm edit]
Muse won, Writer’s Block lost. Wrote another thousand words by force. Probably all trash writing, but at least it’s something to work with.
[/edit]

Mischief Managed

Remember when I said I had the dreaded Writer’s Block? I’m going to admit that I was a little glad I had it. I didn’t know where I wanted the characters to go, I didn’t know what the story should say next…it was time for a break. I’m the sort of writer where I will push through and force myself to write that thousand words a day if I have the time (full-time student, remember…), but I’m letting the characters tell me the story. I have a general sense of how I want the story to end, and where the characters should be, but I let them surprise me along the way.

My mom says that I sound borderline schizophrenic, but I’m no Jekyll/Hyde. Which, by the way, I read that book the other day and while I found it interesting, I was a little disappointed. All these movies, all these dramatizations and interpretations that I’ve seen over the years (including Abott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and the Daffy Duck cartoon from the 60′s, both very funny; and then there’s the Julia Roberts dramatic story, Mary Reilly), left me expecting something very emotional, very tragic. Jekyll and Hyde read like a doctor’s prognosis, which, given the fact that the two main characters involved were doctors, I can forgive that. What about the young female who is endangered by Hyde’s ravenous sexual urges? Completely made up by Hollywood? Oh Hollywood, how you failed and misled me again!

Anyway, I took a break for about a week, let my mind (the part we lowly humans don’t use in our everyday activities) mull over the problems. I went through my entire manuscript and re-outlined what had been written. What were the main events in each chapter? This allows me to see all the subplots as they are forming, how details later on tie back to something seemingly random at the beginning. It also lets me see how the characters are changing. With this done, I walked away from the piece. I didn’t even really read anything, except for The Writer and Writer’s Digest, reading up on new hints, on queries, etc. I watched movies, watched my current Korean drama, studied for the GRE, went to my favorite tea place in town, met friends, hung out with my family, and worked on my T-shirt surgeries.

Thursday night, the one night I was tired enough to fall asleep at midnight (I’m a slight insomniac), I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to, but I couldn’t! Why, you ask? Why was I unable to sleep on the one night I wanted to sleep? My muse kept tapping me on the shoulder. When that didn’t get my attention, she began hitting my head. She finally told me to use my cell phone as a light (I share my bedroom) and scribble out all my ideas on whatever paper I can find. As we all know, cell phone menu lights tend to time out, so, I was up until 2am flipping my cell phone open and shut, scribbling what I can before the light turns off. My shoulders, hands, and eyes were very tired by the time all my ideas fell out. But lo and behold, not only did I figure out where the story should go next, a whole section of the sequel came out of nowhere.

I didn’t even know I was going to write a sequel.

So the moral of the story is, if you’re feeling a little lost, try taking a break. Let your mind work on the back burner, and then go back when you’re feeling good again. If you feel bad, your writing will be bad, I’ve read. Plus, you will have the added advantage of looking at the piece with fresh eyes, and a more discerning critic inside you. Don’t dispair when The Block attacks, it is an opportunity for adding another layer of complication to your story! Something you didn’t think was important before, suddenly will be the focus of your piece. Use that Block to your advantage. Be bold. Be brave. Be persistent. Be a writer.

The Lake House

Today I went to the dollar theater with my mother and sister to see The Lake House. Yes, it was a romantic drama, yes, it was a sort of time travel story, and yes, there were some definite holes in the logic of the story, as are most time travel plots. However, I am not writing to simply pick at The Lake House, I’m writing about it because it sort of affirms why I write romance.

Like I sort of mentioned before, when asked what I write, I would reply, “Historical fiction,” and then mumble, “um, historical romance fiction.” I almost dreaded the question asking why I chose romance, of any genre to write, simply because I didn’t have a real answer, or at least, one that I felt was sincere. It’s true that I write romance because…that’s just what I write. When I put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, romance is what spills out. I usually have to explain what sort of romance I write, because a lot of people assume all romance is the same–most writers know that isn’t true. Romance is also looked down on, seen as everyday and uninspiring, pandering to repressed housewives–also untrue.

Why do people write romantic fiction? Why do people (mainly women) read it? I feel it is because as people, we feel most alive in the middle of a new romance. There is a subtle thrill that excites the everyday, brings meaning to something as silly as brushing your teeth (maybe you’re brushing your teeth because you’re hoping for that first kiss? Haha I don’t know). Romance is life-affirming; it captures the imagination, and when lost in the throes of love, the world is a wonderful place in which you and your love exist together, dancing in a little cloud of rose petals. I’m a hopeless romantic, if you haven’t guessed, which is probably another reason why I write romance.

I know real love isn’t always wine and rose petals, but it is the idea of it, the dream of it, that makes romantic fiction such a popular genre to write and read. Everyone wants to be loved, and most people want to love someone. Life doesn’t always make it so. And so, we turn to the dreams of someone else, written, published, able to put to paper something we can’t verbalize, something we didn’t even realize we wanted.

I’m curious to know, however, those of you writing in different genres, are you ever asked why you write that genre? What would you answer, if asked that question?