Progress of Note
Dec. 1st, 2004 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonI usually don't post progress notes because it's always the same story with me: I grind it out day to day, averaging between 500-850 words. Not a blistering pace, but steady and cumulative. Sometimes I write 1000, 1200, even 2-3000, but mostly it's just grinding it out. But I thought it worthy to note that I have just completed seven chapters of my new novel, Night Warrior. Okay, most of that was rewriting and editing old text to make it come up to my present standards, but it does mean that I am well and thoroughly launched on this new novel. I'm in the zone with it, can feel it spinning out ahead of me and delving deep inside me.
Pam's lessons learned.
Recurrent themes emerge from the darkness. Scenes involving transformative experiences, for one. In my novel Shivery Bones I had a scene where a wounded and desperate man crawls through a gap in a hedge and emerges into a place that will thoroughly change him. Apparently, my Backbrain liked that scene so much it copied it from this older work, ten years before. I'd completely forgotten I had a scene with a boy who crawls through a gap in a briar patch and has a transformative experience until I read it again. Too bad. I think the metaphor works even better in this one. Are metaphors like rivers, I wonder? Can you wade in the same metaphor twice or must they constantly be changing? I suppose it's failure of imagination to reuse such a distinctive one, but *sigh.*
But the positive thing about revisiting this old work after a flood of water under the bridge is that even the things that made me despair and abandon it all those years ago are just not that big of a deal to me this go round. Perspective. Learning more about the craft. Water under the bridge.
Having completed three novels now (and countless stories) I think it's finally sunk in to my creative spirit (and not just my brain) that first drafts are not a life and death proposition. You don't have to get it right the first time—in fact, that's virtually impossible. The job of the first draft is just to be there, a repository for the things inside yearning to get out. Writers have the great luxury of revisions and levels of approach. Here are my hard won (and not profound) lessons learned:
● First draft—just get it done.
● Second draft—fix those plot holes and character inconsistencies and pacing issues—the big ticket items.
● Third draft—maybe concentrate on the language this time around, make it pretty and bright.
● Fourth draft—no, don't go there, you'll get stuck in the never ending revision cycle.
Send the damned thing out and move on to the next thing. If it comes back to you rejected, you always have the option of doing that fourth draft, but if you have well and truly moved on to something else, your perspective will be so much better when the old thing returns—and you can do a much better job at revising it. And anyway, all your eggs won't be in one basket and it won't hurt as much if one of them breaks. Only like wrenching off one of your fingers instead of the whole limb. (And now I'm mixing my metaphors which has got to be as bad as reusing them.)
Your order of dealing with revisions may be substantially different from mine, but this is what's working for me now. As W. Somerset Maugham said in the blog of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala (as well as elsewhere):
"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
Of course, the immortal words of Han Solo are also coming back to me at this moment, too: "Don't get cocky, kid."
On another note: You may recall that the last we heard from Boyfriend and Girlfriend who live upstairs, Boyfriend had filled the back of his truck with dirt which then turned to mud when he drove home in a rain storm and drained all over the garage when he parked it in Girlfriend's parking space. The truck's been there ever since, round about a week and a half I guess, and the mud has dried and turned to stone (lots of clay in local soil). But sometime between 6:45 last night when I got home and 8:30 when I left this morning, someone had moved the truck out of the garage and onto the street. By Imperial order of Yuri? I don't know. And after they moved it, the City of Los Angeles came along and put a boot on the wheel for unpaid parking tickets...
I tried not to laugh too much because that would have been wrong, wouldn't it? I don't need the bad karma. But sometimes, ya know, life is just very funny.
Pam's lessons learned.
Recurrent themes emerge from the darkness. Scenes involving transformative experiences, for one. In my novel Shivery Bones I had a scene where a wounded and desperate man crawls through a gap in a hedge and emerges into a place that will thoroughly change him. Apparently, my Backbrain liked that scene so much it copied it from this older work, ten years before. I'd completely forgotten I had a scene with a boy who crawls through a gap in a briar patch and has a transformative experience until I read it again. Too bad. I think the metaphor works even better in this one. Are metaphors like rivers, I wonder? Can you wade in the same metaphor twice or must they constantly be changing? I suppose it's failure of imagination to reuse such a distinctive one, but *sigh.*
But the positive thing about revisiting this old work after a flood of water under the bridge is that even the things that made me despair and abandon it all those years ago are just not that big of a deal to me this go round. Perspective. Learning more about the craft. Water under the bridge.
Having completed three novels now (and countless stories) I think it's finally sunk in to my creative spirit (and not just my brain) that first drafts are not a life and death proposition. You don't have to get it right the first time—in fact, that's virtually impossible. The job of the first draft is just to be there, a repository for the things inside yearning to get out. Writers have the great luxury of revisions and levels of approach. Here are my hard won (and not profound) lessons learned:
● First draft—just get it done.
● Second draft—fix those plot holes and character inconsistencies and pacing issues—the big ticket items.
● Third draft—maybe concentrate on the language this time around, make it pretty and bright.
● Fourth draft—no, don't go there, you'll get stuck in the never ending revision cycle.
Send the damned thing out and move on to the next thing. If it comes back to you rejected, you always have the option of doing that fourth draft, but if you have well and truly moved on to something else, your perspective will be so much better when the old thing returns—and you can do a much better job at revising it. And anyway, all your eggs won't be in one basket and it won't hurt as much if one of them breaks. Only like wrenching off one of your fingers instead of the whole limb. (And now I'm mixing my metaphors which has got to be as bad as reusing them.)
Your order of dealing with revisions may be substantially different from mine, but this is what's working for me now. As W. Somerset Maugham said in the blog of
matociquala (as well as elsewhere): "There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
Of course, the immortal words of Han Solo are also coming back to me at this moment, too: "Don't get cocky, kid."
On another note: You may recall that the last we heard from Boyfriend and Girlfriend who live upstairs, Boyfriend had filled the back of his truck with dirt which then turned to mud when he drove home in a rain storm and drained all over the garage when he parked it in Girlfriend's parking space. The truck's been there ever since, round about a week and a half I guess, and the mud has dried and turned to stone (lots of clay in local soil). But sometime between 6:45 last night when I got home and 8:30 when I left this morning, someone had moved the truck out of the garage and onto the street. By Imperial order of Yuri? I don't know. And after they moved it, the City of Los Angeles came along and put a boot on the wheel for unpaid parking tickets...
I tried not to laugh too much because that would have been wrong, wouldn't it? I don't need the bad karma. But sometimes, ya know, life is just very funny.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 05:06 am (UTC)*checks OWW*
Hmmm.
;-)
I've noticed a recurring metaphor/theme thing with some of my stuff, too, but I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it might have something to do with our subconsciouses trying to get us to deliver a particular message. If we don't do it one way, the SC comes up with another way for us to do it, maybe without us even knowing it.
Now, if you write three complete published novels about the same thing, well... that might be going a bit far.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 05:43 pm (UTC)I want to catch up on more crits before I start posting, since I'm doing them at such a blistering pace these days. :-/
I've noticed a recurring metaphor/theme thing with some of my stuff, too, but I don't think it's a bad thing.
No, recurrent themes are okay. I think they're part of what makes a writer a writer. Recurrent metaphors probably aren't. ;-) I may just try to get away with this one, though. I'm sure my friends will let me know if it doesn't work. :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 09:27 am (UTC)I have *no* idea what you're talking about. Nope, not a clue. *innocent whistle*
:D
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 05:44 pm (UTC)Oh no, me neither. I was just saying as, like, you know, a for instance. :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 07:21 pm (UTC)*nervous laughter*
:)
It's not like I ever needed an editor to tell me to back away from the computer and leave the thing alone. Nope. :D
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 09:42 am (UTC)Which is a sure sign I've seen one too many live police chases.
Hey, I live in L.A. It's kind of like going to soccer practice out here.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 12:05 pm (UTC)I am absolutely not going to say what draft I'm on. Suffice to say that I have nerved myself to let other people see it to beta it (those plot holes... continuity glitches...) A lot of the problem is that a) my day job and b) the commuting don't leave me with all that much energy. Plus all the distractions: I moved from London to Manchester to get a life, nwo I get double booked. Discipline, that's what I need.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 02:26 pm (UTC)