Where Did the Time Go??

Ok, wow! I didn't know I had been neglecting my poor book for so long. Apparently 5 months flies when you're not paying attention. And I have to be honest I haven't been paying much attention to my writing at all.

After a few personal hiccups in life I hadn't had the motivation to sit at a computer any longer than what I do at work (and 7.5 hours is plenty long). Heck, I could barely pay attention to the work I was doing for work, much less swallow the thought of thinking once I got home. Many things have been neglected in the past few months, not just my writing. I've slowly but surely coming back from that. (Let's just say my apartment is mostly clean)

A couple of weeks ago I had a fairly normal dream, which is very odd for me, and I woke up thinking "These characters could make for a good book". So I'm playing with them now to see where they're going to go. I even have a rough outline. And by rough I have a beginning, a climax, and an end. Considering I had none of those when I wrote my first one I feel pretty ahead of the game. I have a basic concept of what I want the finished product to look like and, if I could get the time, I would sit down and start writing.

Don't worry though! I'm still going to try and get going back on my original idea from (almost) 2 years ago. I love those characters, even the ones I hate (don't ask, it's confusing to me, too) and I can't stay away from them much longer. Its just the voices on the WIP are speaking louder right now. Stay tuned...

Chapter 1... Again

So I have not gotten nearly as far as I would have hoped with this whole revision process. After much deliberation I decided to completely rewrite chapter 1 and take out all of the boring background information. In media res was my new motto. Sadly, it means that I have to take out a small story line that lasted three chapters, but I am up to the task.
Trying to get the beginning right is hopefully the hardest thing I will do. I like the direction the new writing is heading in, more foreshadowing, more characterization, etc; however, I don't like that it just doesn't seem right. (Not the word I was trying to convey but it's difficult to express how I feel about it.) I am taking tonight off from life and sitting myself down in front of the computer. I'm hoping this will get me moving in the direction I need to go so I don't go another month and a half without a post. 

Chapter 1

So I have finally gotten moving on my revision process and it is hard! Not only have I struggled to find time to do it with Christmas coming and putting my office together, but I haven't quite gotten back into the rhythm. It took me two weeks just to revise Chapter 1. I'm not fully satisfied with it and there are a few things that will probably need to be tweaked as I move forward.

This pass, I should probably tell you, is mostly about fleshing out the character, setting, plot, etc. I was actually pretty surprised that there weren't as many plot holes as I had originally thought. That made me very happy. This revision is going to be tough however, because I really need to put a lot into this. I have a feeling that it may take me quite a bit longer than I thought to do this. I have to enforce my deadline so that I can scratch at least one thing off my "Things to do before" list (it used to be things to do before I'm 30, but that has come and gone way too quickly for my liking).

Back to Work

So November is (finally) over. I managed to finish NaNo, just barely and very, very poorly. I just couldn't get moving into the story and I struggled through every minute of it. But it is done and I may actually revisit the story some time and see if I can make something of it. But for now, I have bigger things on my plate.

As some of you may know, I am rapidly approaching my 20-11th birthday and I wanted to at least query agents before that date. I'm just over three months away and I still haven't finished revision on my last year's novel. My office is almost set up, so I'm planning on finishing it tomorrow. I'll also need to print a copy of my second draft. I've been reading tips on revision and have a copy of the Writer's Market so I can start looking into agents.

So it is now time to get moving so that I can at least send one letter out before that day in March.

How Did This Happen?

It is 10:59 pm on November 30, 2010 and...








That's all I'm saying! Good night all!

So It Begins...

Today is November 1st and so begins another month of crazy writing hoping to come up with 50,000 words that will string together to make some sort of sense. So far, however, I haven't even come close. I've been attempting to write all day and have come up short. I have a synopsis of what I'd like to write and a good direction of where I want to go with this story. I'm just stuck. I can't get the thoughts from my brain to put together cohesive sentences that I can move from my fingers to my keyboard. It's really quite frustrating.

I've managed to get about 200 words down and only need 1500 more to make quota for the day. That's what it takes to make the 50k in a month. It seems a little daunting to me right now. Maybe something will come up soon, cause it's so disheartening. I know that I have it in me. So I'm going back to staring at a nearly blank screen and hope that it comes together shortly.

It is Almost THAT Time

So, we've passed the mid-point of October and NaNo is right around the corner. My fabulous hubby has been pushing me to start planning for this year's novel. Sadly, creativity is not something that can be planned. I have nothing ready to start writing. I've been thinking about it a lot hoping that some sort of idea will spark something in me. I originally toyed with the idea of writing a sequel to what I wrote last year. Cool, right? Too bad I can't find a direction to go on since I haven't finished editing yet. I keep hoping that maybe I'll get moving on last year's novel and that will push me into either a direction of a sequel or in another direction for a new novel idea. Nothing!

On the other side, I have been leafing through some new editing books for assistance on re-working my current project. I think that the one I'm currently going through is going to be a big help. I would highly recommend it for any aspiring fiction writers out there. It's called Self Editing for Fiction Writers. I'm still early on in the book but there have been quite a few helpful tips in there. I'm hoping that I'll find a lot as I move forward. Lord knows I need the help. I'm also using it as a push to get going on editing again. I haven't re-read what I've written in a couple months (like may authors suggest), so I'm thinking about printing it out and reading it. Maybe then I'll get somewhere. Only time will tell.