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The original chapter ten had quite a bit of exposition. I'm still working most of the same information in, but I'm trying to do it while having interesting stuff happen. Interesting stuff is good. Chapter ten takes place years after chapter nine, so I need to help the reader get their bearings—I just don't want to put them to sleep in the process. And I think I'm accomplishing that with the new chapter ten. I think the new chapter is going to lead to another new chapter between chapters eleven and twelve. I am hoping that won't throw off the pacing of the rest of this section of the book.

Writing is more fun than revising—for me—so this is a nice break from the revision slog. The toughest part of the process is fighting the powerful urge to just get this thing finished. I want to get it out to my test readers and start working on that query letter. But then I tell myself to relax and take my time. There's a lot of work to do. You don't turn a turd into a cleaner, less smelly turd over-night. Patience.

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The first thing I've found is that the process takes a lot longer than I expected. When I wrote the first draft, my goal was to get the story out of my head as fast as I could and not worry about writing the perfect sentence—that is, assuming I am actually capable of writing something approaching the perfect sentence. Now that I'm editing, my goal is to write those perfect sentences, and I am coming to understand the agony of sweating out every single word.

While writing the first draft I thought I could stare at a blank page for a long time. It turns out, I can stare at a page with words on it even longer. I've been working on it for two weeks and I've only revised two scenes. If I continue at this pace, it will never be finished. But I don't want to rush through any of it. I really do want every sentence to be as good as possible. If it takes years, then so be it. The best part is that I'm truly enjoying the process. That may change after editing a hundred scenes though.

Another complication I've encountered is tracking progress. While I wrote the first draft, I could easily track my word count. With editing, the smallest unit of progress I can track is a whole scene. So if I run out of writing time and I've revised less than one scene—which is common—I come away feeling like a loafer—which I kind of am.

I refuse to allow my slacker tendencies to derail this dream.

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First things first—I'm going to take some time away from the manuscript (calling it a manuscript makes it sound more impressive—you may use that trick). I think I'll be able to read it more critically if I'm not so close to it. I find if I read something I've just written, I can't see any other way to write it. I'm hoping to avoid that.

During that time off—probably a month or two—I think I'll do some reading on the craft of writing. I'm looking at Elements of Fiction Writing - Description by Monica Wood and Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field. While I'm doing that, I still need to be writing so I'm going to work on a short story and see how that goes.

At the beginning of 2009 I made it a goal to write one chapter of a novel. That goal was neglected and forgotten until July when I found the story idea I had been looking for. For years, I've kept a list of story ideas as well as notes on the ideas. The idea that eventually became the story I've written was developed over a month of note taking. It changed drastically from day to day until it finally got to the point where I started writing. And once I started writing, the story just kept coming. My worries that I would be unable to get past 10,000 words and 20,000 words faded as I found myself at 40,000 words, 50,000 words, and beyond.

As I got used to the writing process, I found what worked best for me was getting the story out as quickly as possible—not worrying about writing the perfect prose. Once I started doing that, the words came much more easily. We'll see how I feel about it when I start editing. Vonnegut mentions this method of writing as well as the inverse method in Timequake.

Tellers of stories with ink on paper, not that they matter anymore, have been either swoopers or bashers. Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn't work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they're done they're done.

We won't talk about the next paragraph where he mentions that most men are bashers and most women are swoopers.

I'm excited to begin editing. It will be my first experience with editing a work of this length. I expect it will take as long or longer to edit than it did to write. I'm also feeling some measure of dread at the prospect of going back and reading the draft. I worry it will be so bad I will be scarred for life from the horror of beholding it. I don't think it's quite that bad, but you know how it is when you read your own work, it's like trying to judge your children's athletic ability or intelligence—of course they're the best athlete/smarted kid in the world.

I've been neglecting this site while I was working on the first draft—at least that was my excuse. I don't have that excuse now, so I'm hoping to have more frequent posts. If my past record is any indication, more frequent posts are unlikely. People who can generate a high quantity of content and make it interesting and/or useful are amazing to me. Anyone can vomit out gobs of boring self-indulgent drivel—even me. If I work hard at it, perhaps it's a skill I can develop like an exercised muscle. And if I'm the only one who reads no one will get hurt either way.

Cheers.

In college, one of my biggest challenges was being able to write enough to satisfy the page requirements of papers I had been assigned.  I had to use all the formatting tricks available to fill the five or ten or twenty pages demanded by the professor.  I’d increase the margins, increase the spacing between the letters, use slightly more than double spacing, and of course use the Courier New font.  How I loved that font.

Photo by robotographyWhen I read what other authors have to say about their writing process, most of them write much more than they are planning to keep in the final version.  Then they slice and dice to get to their desired word count.  I hope I don’t have the opposite problem.

10,000 words has gotten me through four chapters and I’ve I still got a bit to go before my first major plot point.  I’d like to have another 10,000 words or more before I get there.  There’s a chance I’ll struggle doing that.  I might have to go back and add more detail to a few of the scenes.  I tried to avoid having too much detail—maybe too well.  Books describing every tree in the forest in exacting detail annoy me and I often end up putting them down—usually for good.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the writing I’ve done is how the words have come more easily the more I’ve written.  I had read that writing improves with practice and I believe I’m finding that to be true.  Here’s to hoping the improvement continues.

Aloha.