The Editing Games

I am trying so hard to resist cracking open the novel and plowing headfirst into it. I can feel it, calling out to me and tempting me with its misspellings and misplaced commas. It’s like the Sirens or something.

A friend of mine gave me some good advice: the longer you wait the better. It’s been two weeks, and I’m pretty fuzzy on about half of the thing, so I think another two weeks will do the trick.

Then the editing games begin.

There are articles and advice all over the Internet concerning editing. I’ve been doing some reading, just to see how other people go about it. I mentioned in my last post that yes, I’m a trained copy editor, but editing a 700 word news story is a different ballgame when you go about editing a 50,000 word novel. There are different things to worry about besides spelling, grammar, factualness, and coherency. Added to the mix are plot development, characters and character development, setting, and a whole laundry list of other elements that make a novel a novel.

Some methods I’ve researched:

• Notecards This method worked well for me when I was plotting out the story originally, and it might be worth re-visiting in the edits. Take every scene and put it on notecards, and lay them out in order. It gives you a visualization of your novel and makes it easier to see plot holes, or scenes that are just filler. You can also move as you please. Chris Baty (NaNoWriMo founder) advocates for this method in his book No Plot? No Problem!  and he makes a pretty good case for it. I’ll keep it on the list.
• Different Drafts I can’t remember where I read about this method, but your first draft is catching mistakes and correcting them, then a different draft for character development, a different draft for sensory details, a different draft for emotional things, etc. I think this would be useful if you’ve already seen to it that your story is complete and you’re satisfied with the arc.
• Lemony Snicket’s advice His advice is featured on the I Wrote A Novel, Now What? page on the NaNo website. “Put the book aside and listen, for the first time, to your insecurities. Do not pay attention to what they say but to where they are pointing.” I’m a very insecure writer anyway, so the ability to let myself listen to my doubts and the Inner Editor is freeing and encouraging.
• Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Revision I’m sorry, but I don’t think a whole novel can be edited in one pass. I know if you take your time with it and focus, it can work for some people, but definitely not for me. I’m wary of it, and I doubt I’ll ever try it.

I’m mostly positive I’ll be doing a step by step process, and it’s going to be difficult to resist fixing the little things before I fix the big things. A novel isn’t made just by deleting a few commas. I know that I’ll end up needing second opinions, and I plan on sharing with people who aren’t close friends or family first, but they’ll still be people that I’ve come to know and trust as writers.

In the meantime, while I wait for my novel to marinate, I’ve offered my services to fellow NaNo survivors as a second pair of eyes, using my copy editing skills on their novels. It’s a good way to pass the time until it’s time for me to work on my big, huge, scary novel.

And so, I leave you with these words from Oscar Wilde:

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.

“Victory is mine! Victory is mine…

…great day in the morning, people, victory is mine. I drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land.” - Josh Lyman, The West Wing 102

I took some time to reflect on how November went before I started thinking about blogging again. The month ended in a rush that I wasn’t quite prepared for, which included an influx of social events, and unintentionally falling behind on my word count. Bottom line: I got it done, and I have a novel.

It was a tooth and nail fight to cross the finish line (with two hours to spare). I jumped tracks so many times I have to separate out the different things I started and didn’t finish. What I did end up doing though, is adding onto, and finishing, another NaNo novel, which is sort of against the rules, but if there are words for one project, I’m not going to force words that aren’t there. I feel like that’s the most valuable thing I’ve learned this month: if the words aren’t there, don’t force it. If the words come for something else, work on that for a while; inspiration might come afterwards.

I don’t have much else to say on the experience, except to say that I learned a lot abou the kind of writer I am, in terms of method and genre. I’m a mostly solitary writer, with fits of needing word wars and social interaction with others of my kind. It was an enormous help to unload on other Wrimos, and have a little friendly competition in the name of upping the word count. And I like to write fantasy…it cuts out the amount of research I have to do and I like to let my mind wander. I tried not writing it and I just ended up floundering in indecision and research and minutiae that I really didn’t want to deal with.

So now the completed novel sits patiently on my harddrive while I regain perspective and a set of fresh eyes. Then, in about two or three weeks, I’ll start slogging through the re-writes and the edits. And you better believe I’m going to share all of that with you.

Speaking of, I don’t even know how I’m going to tackle the edits. I’m a trained copy editor, but editing a novel is a whole different ball game to editing news articles. For one thing, the scale is completely different 700 word news article versus a 50000 word BEHEMOTH? It’s daunting to say the least.

Also, apparently my body gave out just as soon as the clock switched to Dec. 1: I’m now rocking an almighty cold that makes my head feel like it’s detached from my body, and has me hacking up a lung every half hour. I’m just happy my immune system waited until December to give up.

NaNoWriMo Week 2

I absolutely loathe Week 2 of NaNoWriMo. All the advice says to push through it, and so push through I shall endeavor to do.

At this point in the month I’m clueless: I have no idea where I’m going with the plot and with the characters ensconced in the plot. One thing I should probably do is step back and say, “Okay, I’ve come this far, where does this go next?” I know by this time next week I’ll feel a lot better about things and say to myself, “Now was that freak out necessary?”

I’m using any means to push through the awfulness that is always Week 2: Write or Die, writing longhand, closing my eyes and just writing whatever comes to mind concerning the scene.

Hopefully everything comes through in the edits and rewrites in January.

How are you all doing on your wordcounts? Are you just as frustrated with Week 2?

You Know It’s Serious When You Lose Sleep

I am a terrible blogger. And I completely failed the Post A Day challenge. I should just call it Post A Week (Until Further Notice).

You know, I had a feeling that when NaNo started, I would suddenly not have time to blog. It turns out I was right. Or I should budget my time better, but I see next to no chance of that happening. So.

I think I should explain what happened to me a few days ago. I posted in my wonderful NaNoWriMo Google+ circle that I was having some troubles writing (more trouble than usual a.k.a., I was losing sleep over it) and I got some great advice, from killing a character, to “relax,” to stepping away from it for a while. What happened instead was I started to write whatever I wanted to write, and my mind went back to an idea I’ve been toying with for a while. And guess what happened? The words just started to pour out of me. It was magical.

I distinctly remember my first NaNo, and how much fun I had writing it, because I knew how it began, and I knew how it ended, so I just wrote the middle with no idea how it was going to go. And I had a ball. Even my mother mentioned how much fun I had with the first one (and it’s the only one that’s complete!), and now I just stress out about my NaNo novels. Am I really a pantser at heart? This so goes against my nature, but I’m willing to try it, if it means writing is fun again and I actually finish instead of getting to the climax and stopping.

Considering the plot I started November with, I believe that I plotted myself into a box that I didn’t know how to get out of. So I’ve put the original idea on the back burner, to give it time to boil down to the idea it started as; go in fresh when it’s ready and when I’m ready.

But for now, I’m just going to work on the thing that’s actually working for me.

NaNo: Progress Report

Well, it’s heading towards 11 p.m., and I’d say I’ve had a pretty productive day! I’m not as far along as I wanted to be by the end of Day 1, but I’ll take when I can get. I’m stopping for now, because I have other things I need to do before a midnight deadline, namely 750words and a guest blog spot elsewhere on the Interwebz.

My goal this year is 80,000 words. I don’t know if this is a psychotic death wish, wishful thinking, or what, but I’m determined to do it.

OK, off I go again!

Hope your NaNo adventures are going well!

I’m Ready…I Think

OK, the countdown begins!  It’s 9:50 p.m. over here in China land, which means I am anxiously watching the minutes to midnight tick by.

I’ve done all the preparing I feel like I can do. I even braved the masses of gawking, Hello!-shouting, Chinese people and went to the supermarket to stock up on the necessities, a.k.a. chocolate. I even found instant coffee, which I guess is a good alternative to the regular thing.

Also, my apartment is the cleanest it has EVER been, which is saying a lot because roommate neglects to clean his sunflower seed shells most of the time.

The plot cards are laid out on their temporary home (my bed) for easy access and reference. The chocolate is handy for the first 1667 reached, an episode of the West Wing is lined up for the second 1667 reached, and the coffee is there should I need it.

80,000 words and a first draft, here I come! (Yep, I set my goal high this year. I have the free time, I might as well make use of it.)

The Kids Are All Right

I never thought that when I started this job I would be wiping away someone else’s child’s tears with such frequency. Whether a child is genuinely upset or just upset they didn’t get their way, it still manages to twist something in my gut. Sometimes it makes me laugh or roll my eyes when I know the tears are just because the child wants the attention, but the genuine tears really upset me.

Genres! Lots to Choose From!

I was thinking about genres and niches yesterday and I jotted it down so I could make a quick comment on it. It was spawned by a blog I subscribe to, and for the life of me I cannot remember whose, and for that I’m sorry. (If it was you, please tell me so I can link back to it!)

As I thought about genres and niches in regards to writing, I compared it to choosing a major in college. You don’t want to choose something you’re going to hate. Why pick mathematics when you really want to study art history? You know you’re going to be unhappy with it. Why write historical fiction when you really want to write high fantasy?

This is my problem though: just like in college, I want to try everything. Political science, English lit, philosophy, biology, American history, French, you name it, I wanted to take a class in it. Now, I want to try writing everything. Historical fiction, memoirs, mainstream, literary, hell, maybe even erotica.

It’s a good thing NaNoWriMo is available for those of us who want to dip our feet in all the different genres, so we can test the waters and see what we’re comfortable with, what we like to write, and what won’t bore us to tears before week 2 even starts.

Characters, Characters, Characters

I missed yesterday’s blog post and I apologize, profusely! I don’t know who actually reads the blog, but to those who do, I’m sorry.

With NaNoWriMo just around the corner (literally!) I still have some things to do, mainly character development, which I’ve been told on several occasions is my weakest area. You’d think after being told I’d learn, but there it is.

I have the “basics” down for the three main characters: what they look like, their jobs, their familial backgrounds, their motivations, external/internal conflicts, and some vices. All of this has come out in writing paragraphs about each of them.

The worksheets everyone suggests work fine for some things, but they never go as in depth as I want them to, and those that have open ended questions are odd questions, like what animal your character is afraid of, or what their favorite food is. I don’t find them useful at all. Perhaps that’s just me, I don’t know.

I still feel like I need more information before I start writing on Monday night, but I don’t know what kind of information. My gut feeling is that as soon as I start writing the characters, more of tidbits will come out and then I won’t have to worry about telling versus showing.

Or maybe I should just write pages and pages in their POV before Monday.

I’m taking suggestions, fellow writers! I promise cookies or crocheted something or other, or pretty photos of China.

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Listening to: Enter The Haggis – The Apothecary

Eureka!

Breakthroughs have been had, people! Breakthroughs, I tell you!

As you can see, I’ve been very busy:

Eureka!

Thanks to some advice from B, and some friends in my invaluable NaNoWriMo Google+ circle, I walked away from my plot and its problems. In the meantime, I crocheted some mittens, worked, had a birthday and caught a cold, in that order. I decided that today would be a good day to get back to my plot and try to figure out why I was having problems making everything come together. I didn’t know if I needed fresh eyes, or if I had truly gone wrong somewhere and needed to go back.