Every free moment you run across gets taken up with getting those holiday cards out the door, trimming the tree, wrapping presents, cooking something to bring to holiday parties and cookie exchanges...and then there are the parties themselves! Fun, totally fun. But they take up all your weekends!
So writing...gets pushed to the back-burner for a month or two. I usually write off writing for the months of November and December, pun intended. And it sucks. All I want to do is finish my second draft so I can start submitting queries. Yet, I don't want to short-change my final product by half-assin' it either, know what I mean?
However, when you don't have the time to sit down and write, edit, it's a great time to jot down notes that come to mind. Keep a tally of all the chapters you want to re-work, darlings you want to kill, to make your final draft sparkle!
I could give you a list of ideas to help you sneak in some writing time. But I think taking a break during this season of too much is good for your writing in the end. Come January you'll be so geared up and excited to write! That you will have enough stamina to last you until next October ;)
So, keep a pad of paper and pen with you always to jot down those quick thoughts and ideas. And if you find chunks of uninterrupted time to write and actually get to partake in them?! Great! Write your heart out!
But don't hurt yourself. Take it easy and save up your energy for next year ;)
Ok, so I need somewhere to put my all the darlings I kill. Some I do admit are a waste of time. They need to be offed. However, like this one, I just LOVE IT! And I might still use it somewhere in the novel. But for now, I'd like to share one of my favorite darlings.
Oh, and if you're wondering, a 'darling' is a word, line of words, paragraph, or even a whole chapter that you utterly LOVE! But for reasons beyond your control, they just don't work! Your book will be better for their departure. However...they are your darlings!
I think the massacre is the hardest part of editing. Maybe why many writers stop short of brilliance because they just can't do it. It hurts too much!
This one hurt me a lot! Yet, it had to be done...and done it is. I am forever encasing this lovely darling on my blog so I can come back to it and weep...and maybe find a new place for it. Oh, wouldn't that just be so nice! To resurrect a darling!
Yes. That's why we hold on to them for far too long. Main reason I couldn't edit chapter three was because of this little one.
Staring between the door I came in, a sign adhered to its back labeled exit, and an opposing door with a sign reading office, I feel like running. I want to leave. Then again, I have to stay. Thankfully, I’m alone in the waiting room, free to sweat bullets one second and attempt some form of relaxation the next. Annoying as it is, I am getting used to this rollercoaster emotional thing: In the three weeks it’s taken me to make the appointment, I’ve traversed between the two extremes more than once.
I think every writer out there interested in getting published needs to read an Agent blog or two. Just to get into our heads just what they are looking for in terms of query letters, synopsis, and, above all, how to approach them!
I've been reading the following literary agent blogs and I must say, I had no idea some were so heartless! While others are working like hell to get good books out of good writers. Sometimes helping little ol'writers like us improve our prose with constructive criticism.
ALWAYS constructive...should there be any other form?
My list of THE best agent blogs :)
Nathan Bradsford Not only is he easy on the eyes, he's down to earth, a writer himself, and tells it like it is when he comes across horrid writing. I respect such honesty. Rants & Ramblings Her view on self-publishers hooked me into reading the rest of her blog. Query Shark Need I say more? Query Shark shreds query letters down to size and points out in minute detail just what is wrong with them. What's nice is that she lets authors 'try again'...
Pub Rants I love her 'beginner writer mistakes' blog posts. Helps to know what's up the road :) Janet Reid Tells it like it is. She doesn't mince words. Refreshing to see someone just get out there and say what needs to be said in a professional manner without taking everything too seriously.
Anyone out there know if LOST is coming back?! I don't watch TV except for cooking shows while folding laundry and UFC night with my hubby, so I don't see many commercials.
I miss my LOST!
But with it taking so many months off just so that we can watch a new LOST episode every week, IMO, is anti-climatic. I really am loosing interest in the whole thing. And I can't remember what the heck was happening at the end of last season.
Once a die-hard fan, I'm starting to care less if it comes back at all...And it doesn't even pain me to admit that. Now THAT is sad. What are the producers and network thinking?!
But, WOW! Was it great seeing the actor who played Charlie on the new Wolverine movie. Just wish they hadn't killed him off so quick!
I need a recap and a few reruns to get back in the swing of things. I do have the first 4 seasons on DVD, but who the heck has time for that? I don't think I have enough laundry - and time away from my 3yo - to watch it.
As far as my memory goes - and it's been pretty bad lately - they are still in the 70's? And Aaron is in the future with his G'ma, Sun hasn't found her hubby yet, but saw the pic...OMG! Whats-her-face just died at the end??? Or she is renewed to better ever-lasting health because of being next to the source of the light when it happened...Desmond didn't get incinerated when he turned the key...I'm thinking she doesn't actually die, otherwise that is just too easy for Kate to get back with Honey-Honey...
Ok, now I'm getting excited all over again! :) I just can't wait for it to come back! And I do not agree that this waiting game is worth it. I love reruns! Even during the season.
So that's my vote. Bring LOST back now!!! But first let me fix my TiVo...gotta make sure I don't miss it ;)
I've heard this expression over and over again for as long as I've been writing. Recently I have been reading Stephen King's On Writing and I have finally come to realize what this phrase means!
Yes, I know, I'm slow...not to be mistaken with blond, although my husband would beg to differ...
Killing your darlings...
Before I thought it meant that you should kill your darlings! As in whichever character you learned to love while writing your novel you should kill off in the end.
Bittersweet endings are better than la-di-da ones, right? Again, my husband's opinion ;)
And maybe some authors do kill off their characters after they invest an entire book on them -likeJodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper killed off poor little Anna. And yes, it invokes a heart wrenching emotional response that stays with the reader long after they take up another book.
However, that's not what kill your darlings means. Maybe to some people, but not to me. I know who my darlings are now...
My darlings consist of one or two phrases, or a couple paragraphs. Even a whole chapter. Words strung together that I've poured my heart and soul and sweat and blood and tears into. I've worked on them for hours, my effort plainly see in the perfection of the beautifully executed prose...but, for whatever reason, and totally beyond my control...they don't go.
They don't work with the story.
For whatever reason, they work against the flow, the pace, the story. They take up too much space. They repeat again and again, however eloquently, the same things I've mentioned in previous chapters.
So, for this exact reason - no matter how much I love and adore my darlings - I have to let them go. I can't keep them. They have to go.
Too many words - no matter how wonderfully written - are just that. Extra.
So, what do you do? Keep it there just because you can't just delete your wonderful hard work? And risk your entire novel sounding horrible because you said the same thing a hundred wonderful times too many?
Yes, I'm repeatedly rambling on here to make a point...
No matter how much it hurts...you have to kill your darlings.
Save your darlings in a separate file. Maybe you'll be able to use them again. They are good, no great, after all. Of course you'll be able to use them somewhere else in the future. Maybe another book.
Do whatever you have to do to make yourself feel better about killing them.
And then...kill them...kill them all!
So, what will be left, after the slaughter? A clean, streamlined book that gets straight to the point without filler. Beautiful!
Once you see how perfect your novel starts to sound without all those dead darlings hanging around, you'll start to respect the task. And yes, it will be easier as you go. Maybe like me, you'll even look forward to slashing and slaying your chapters to make them read clean and true. This is what the second draft is all about. Finding out what your story is really about and then streamlining everything, getting rid of the extra nonsense. Don't want to loose that momentum, right?
Keep those files around. Maybe you can use them later...
I was just given a great gift today. I was sitting at my booth at the Green & Natural Living Expo today. Displayed in front of me, my wonderful mural and faux painting portfolio, waiting for some new like-minded customers. I haven't painted in a while. I need clients.
Only, no one came.
Why? Wine festivals... They took all the locals and non-locals who usually end up at the Expo. Bad timing, right? So, I had six hours to sit on my keester (yep, that's how you spell it ;)
After the first half hour flew by (ha!) I pulled out my trusty pen and pad o'paper and started to write. And write I did! I added two scenes to chapter one and added to the first conversation my MC has with her soon to be man ;)
Ah...I love love...
All in all, I can't feel my butt anymore, but I did get some real writing time, uninterrupted! Not exactly why I packed up all my business supplies and set up a booth at the Expo...but a good way to utilize the time nonetheless!
Long story short, I am putting in some background and dialogue to help build my main characters while also adding to my main character's reason for striving for a better way of life.
And my kids are helping me with this one a little bit ;)
Should make for a great addition! Wish I could post some on here, but I'm never quite sure how 'safe' my work would be on the WWW... Maybe I'll publish a sneak peak soon...what do you think?
Finally, I had my first chapter - chapter 1 - critiqued by the writer's group I joined last month. It was so much fun reading and editing everyone else's chapters, I could not wait for my chance!
And then, the moment I submitted chapter 1, I realized something. Something that the little voice in the back of my mind has been trying to tell me, I refused to believe it was something that I had to do:
Kill chapter 1...
Once I submitted that chapter for the scrutiny of others, I hit me. The chapter is completely disposable. It doesn't do anything to move the story along. It's way too elusive. It doesn't do anything but paint a pretty picture about what is going to happen latter in the book without giving any details to the reader as to what exactly those events are...
What good is it then?
My book originally started out in a very sad, dark place. And it worked. I thought I like it.
Then, as I worked through the later chapters and got to the parts where my MC reaches a better place in her life, it seemed odd starting the book off so horribly. Who the heck would want to read something in it's entirety unless they got a taste of what's to come first?
So I took chapter 8 - when she's at the brink of happiness - and tossed it to the front as chapter 1. It does paint a great picture of a woman who almost has a handle on life and is starting to love it all again... I had decided to use the dark, sadness of her past as a flashback...and make it quick!
In my head, it sort of almost worked...I thought I had it...
But when I pressed send, I became instantly aware of my mistake...I shouldn't even have sent off the happy-go-lucky chapter...I should have killed it instead!
It's not a good start to a book that NEEDS to start hard and depressing and show you the rough road the MC takes to get to a better place. It hurts to say this (since I've worked on and through these 21 pages for oh so long) but chapter one has got to go.
I have to kill it...
I toyed with fixing it, adding in all the advice of my critique group (I am still taking to heart their main points!) and I'm sure the chapter would become sooo much better for all their critiques...But it still won't be a good start to my book.
And you know what?
It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would.
I thought I was going to die to kill off all these pages that I worked so hard at. But in all honesty, I feel relieved. Even elated! I can't wait to go back to my original plan and start the book out with my MC - main character - in a dark hole of despair. Rock bottom. A tortured soul...and then on to the long hard dirt-caked-under-nails crawl out of her hole...
In some ways it makes it more real - the sad, the haunted, the pain - with a bit of fluff added here and there for good measure.
I get to submit another chapter in a week...I'll be sending out my REAL chapter 1 - the original start to my novel. I'll let you know what they think!
I haven't been blogging at all for a while now and I'm not sure when I'll start up again. I can't seem to write. I don't have a feeling in my soul to convey, not a word to toss around, nor a story to concoct. My heart holds all these things and more...but my heart is broken...
Last month I witnessed a horrible tragedy...one that I still cannot will myself to write about. Truth be told, I'm still in denial. Still hoping he'll be ok. That the doctors were wrong when they said that he was gone...
We're all trying to justify getting out of bed in the morning and living our lives to the fullest. But sometimes it's so hard to get past the why? and how? that even trying to remember how to boil water doesn't come easily...
Andrew Dowley, a little boy that we cherished, a sweet little friend to my own children, the 2 year old son of our dear friends, past away suddenly, unexpectedly. So far, the reasoning? Unknown...
So now, we just take it day by day...trying to live life...yet stuck on the why and how... In loving memory...Andrew Dowley...
They say write what you know and we all abide by that rule, to a certain extent at least. I mean, honestly, how can we really live the lives of all our characters.
We expand on what we know - add a little here, add a little there - until we create a world that is unlike our own. And that is what readers want: something to take them away from their everyday life...
So, how then, do we write what we know when all we want to do is blissfully drift off into the unknown?
Infusing a little reality with imagination is the key to creating the vastness that draws readers and writers alike into your story. A little real life practicality mixed with impromptu daydream drama can make for a rich conglomeration that not only paints a picture, but also peeks our interest to know more and more...
At the moment I'm attempting to do some of the things my main character does while on a last minute vacation mixed with family obligation. And I'm glad that I have. Not only have I realized that some of the locations wouldn't really work out as I had thought they would, but I've also discovered by chance some additional scenes that are going to enhance my story line.
As much fun as I'm having on vacation, I can't wait to get back to my own reality and start editing and adding some of these finds. But I'm glad that i have been doing this 'research' and eliciting the five senses to help me create a new world where my story not only takes place, but also lives...
Editing my novel has been sucking the fun out of writing. I was about to pack it up and call it a day when I got an idea...
and got out my trusty note pad...
and starting plotting...
a new book!
Thinking about new characters, new plot lines, researching different angles... I'm so excited now, all I want to do it edit my novel and get it out the door so I can start a new one!
Haven't thought of a title yet, but here is a quick synopsis of what it will be about...
The secondary character in the first novel is the MC - main character - in the sequel. It's going to be a fun and sexy whirlwind of a book on how to find love over 35, after a failed marriage, being a single mom, and watching your little sister get engaged and live happily ever after while you're not...
This is really helping me edit my novel since I can't start actually writing the second one until the first one is done and out the door!
Editing was sucking the fun out of writing...now with this new book's characters and plot swimming around in my head, I'm excited to write again!
Ha! Writing during the holiday season?!
