Tag Archives: rewrite

My Self-Imposed #NaNoWriMo to #write in a #summer of #motherhood. (Or, To Create in Bedlam II: Turbo.)

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When Aionios Books offered me a contract, I lost all feeling in feet and fingers. I just waved my arms like Wallace scheming to land on a moon full of cheese.

Bo looked at me with a Gromit-ish eye roll, but was proud, nonetheless.

Part of the plan put to me by Gerri Santiago involved splitting my manuscript for Fallen Princeborn: Stolen into two books. She explained that the word count was a bit much for Young Adult.

150,000 words is too much? That’s only 600some pages of…you know, a debut novel from an author hardly a soul knows.

Okay, let’s split it.

The most apt place for the severance comes at the end of Fallen Princeborn‘s second act: the heroes have just battled one crew of baddies and are regrouping before the baddie crew arrives. With Stolen’s new arc set, Gerri has been helping me see areas where world-building can use more color, where pov voices require more definition–you know, the stuff I bother other writers about in my interviews. As Book 1 blooms all bright and pretty, Act III-turned-Book 2 looks more and more…wee.

I open the “book” and scope out its word count.

50,000.

Uh oh.

Where’s the book?

A single act does not a book make. It introduces fresh villains, sure, but Book 2’s narrative can’t pick up immediately where Stolen leaves off without some fresh establishment of the core cast, touching up on the setting, redefining the voices of the protagonists and narrator, and bringing in EVERYTHING THAT MAKES A STORY.

Oh dear.

No, Writer Me, don’t panic. That’s still 50,000 words of material to utilize. Those characters who only got a cameo so they could be saved for later? Let’s flesh’em out now. That whole new breed we introduce but don’t really dwell on? Visit their realm and see what makes them tick. The new villains we get to meet in these 50,000 words? Give’em more words. Let them breed a bit more treachery, let them show their gilded goodness before their truly nasty mettle. And just what are these people, anyway? Let’s wade into the murky swamp of Magic’s history.

Thanks to the severance, these trying times for the heroes have a chance to be truly trying. Why cram all these dramatic moments together? This is a book, not a movie trailer.

But while Fallen Princeborn originally had eight years to mature, Book 2 needs to be rewritten in half a year while maintaining some semblance of motherhood over the little Bs, teaching, writing book reviews, website stuff, and more. These obligations are not going away. By hook or by crook, Book 2’s manuscript must be completed by June’s end.

That’s only, oh, another 50,000 words…the same word count challenge for National Novel Writing Month.  This means writing at 1700 words a day, or fall short of the finish line.

Panic?

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Ever try to write with a five-year-old sitting on your head?

 

No.

Panic wastes time and energy. No.

I once wrote about writing and parenting with all three kids at home. Time to pull out the old plan and crank it up from past needs to present.

First, contact the school district and enroll all three in summer school. Now I have mornings sans kids for about half the month.

Next, dig through all the kid movies. What hasn’t been watched in a while? Save it. Use it during the first chunk of June. If the kids are engaged, they won’t fight for a couple of hours.

Talk to Bo. Work out any days he can get home early, or when home projects can be done on week nights so the weekends can be saved for extra writing time.

See how other writers maintain their NaNoWriMo-ness when NaNoWriMo ain’t goin’ on. Fantasy writer John Robin, for instance, has a great idea for maintaining the NaNo drive off the clock.

https://epicfantasywriter.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/an-ongling-nanowrimo-with-more-flexibility-and-how-you-can-join-us/?blogsub=confirmed#blog_subscription-2

Yeah, there’s a deadline, and yeah, it’s frickin’ scary. Some days I might only get 1,000 words done, or even less, and then other days crank out an insane 5,000. The point is we can’t afford to think about the time we don’t have. We must embrace the race to write. Steal every minute we can. There will be stumbling blocks, there will be plot holes, but we’ll get to those in the editing. For now, it’s time to hurl ourselves into the story and run.

nano

 

 

 

#Lessons Learned from #DianaWynneJones for #NaNoWriMo: “Just Bash On & Do It.”

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With National Novel Writing Month just a few days away, I think it’s worth pausing my own nonfiction and lessons from my favorite writer until December. However, to help those who also revel in the Thirty Days and Nights of Literary Abandon, I shall continue sharing Writer’s Music posts throughout the month.

That said, I wanted to talk about something from Diana Wynne Jones’ Reflections that feels especially appropriate on the cusp of NaNoWriMo.

13140843In 2011, Charlie Butler interviewed Jones in her home. At one point he asks about her writing process, and if others, such as editors, see the work in progress. Jones is very clear that this is NOT how she works:

I hate being edited, because my second draft is as careful as I can get it. I try to get it absolutely mistake-free, and absolutely as I feel the book needs to be. Then some editor comes along and says, “Change Chapter Eight to Chapter Five, take a huge lump out of Chapter Nine, and let’s cut Chapter One altogether.” And you think, No, I’m going to hit the ceiling any moment. Then I call for my agent before I get my hands round this person’s throat.

…

Thank God it was the days before computers. I said, “Send me the typescript back and I’ll see what I can do.” So she did, and I cut out the bits she told me to alter, in irregular shapes, then stuck them back in exactly the same place with Sellotape, only crooked, so it looked as if I’d taken the pieces out and put new pieces in. And then I sent it back to her, and she rang up and said, “Oh, your alterations have made such a difference.” And I thought, “Right! Hereafter I will take no notice of anybody who tries to edit my books.”

Now while I can only dream of having this woman’s confidence and ability to write sideways and backwards and ALWAYS create something awesome (such as Hexwood), she still marks the point that it is the SECOND draft she makes perfect. Her first draft was always written by hand, and she accepted that chunks of it would need to be done over: “If you want to make your story as good as you can get it, you have to go over it and get it right.”

For some of us, who are on draft #8 (ahem), “getting it right” in only one or two rewrites still sounds like a miracle. But it is nice to know that one whose plots knot every which way and still produce these beautiful woven works does not expect it to be right the first time. Yet another reason NaNoWriMo is so wonderful for writers: it forces us through that first draft–in Jones’ words, “Just bash on and do it.” Then, with the time crunch gone, we can take our time, pick the story threads apart, and concentrate completely on “getting it right.”

Click here for more on Diana Wynne Jones and her article “Hints on Writing.”

Click here for more on National Novel Writing Month.