A Frolicking Muse

If you are one of my zillions of fans, you know that I'm always coming up with some new process to circumvent or streamline what's not working in my current writing process. Whether it's new software - I'm the Queen of Software, a new book, listening to and completing exercises from a RWA workshop. From reorganizing the files and storyboard in Scrivener or Write It Now to printing out calendars and using post-its to analyze my plot lines. And much more.

I've been writing on TR now for over a year. Granted it started off as a mystery romance and has morphed into a paranormal mystery romance urban fantasy, sort of. The world building took forever. Then I got the Sh$$ scared out of me as I got closer to the end and the dragging and dropping, reorganizing, analyzing (there's a reason that word starts with A-N-A-L) and thinking seemed to have taken on a life of it's own.

Last week, I posted that I was going to just go forward, no matter what and chose to do it the way I started out - with a really good gel pen and a spiral bound hard backed notebook. This is working so well, I may do all my first drafts from now on manually. Aack, ME writing without any software!

A few PROs I've noticed:
1. I'm NOT on the computer to get distracted.
2. I'm NOT in my favorite environment, software, to explore better ways to analyze, organize and format the story.
3. My muse loves working with the characters and plot on the fly. She skips ahead - yes I finally know it's a she - to figure out what directions the plot needs to go while I'm writing the current scene. SHE doesn't like creating on the computer.
4. I remember what I've written better. When I pick up the notebook again, I don't have to re-read as much. For me, handwriting notes has always helped me retain the information so that makes sense.
5. I can carry that little notebook and pen with me where ever so I'm able to make better use of those little moments of writing time.
6. It seems that when I write on the computer I'm consciously or unconsciously keeping track of word count, giving myself mental pats for wordiness. THe handwriting seems to entail less wandering around, more suitable material.

The CONs:
1. Yeah, eventually I'll have to type the whole friggin thing into the computer. But that should serve as a excellent first revision. I hope.
2. The re-writing.
3. No ability to cut and past but hey, I'm not supposed to be revising on the first draft right?

Anyway, I'm pleased that I was able to post what I intended to do and for once I can report that I did it. And it worked! IS working, gotta be careful about those blanket statements made to a global audience who may hold me to it.

TR is now at 103k. Wrote almost 10k this week - see there I go again. I'm going to stop tracking that statistic until the last couple revisions when it's necessary. My muse is skipping through a field of butterflies.

Worldbuilding and First Drafts

I'm about three hours from the end of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. When a book is really really good, I have to savor it, like the best dark chocolate truffles I ever had (there were only six of them in a little bag I purchased in London). And of course, as a writer, it's fun to analyze the author's style.

I both love and hate that I can't figure out where he's going with his plots. The arcs of plot and character are so well done, the clues so patiently distributed that when they come together at certain turning points in the novels, I say, All Riiight! or Aack! A couple of times I've had a feeling of pure satisfaction at an unexpected but desired result.

This all makes me wonder about his rough draft. How much of his world and magic did he have figured out at the beginning and end of the first draft? How much developed through revisions and into the next two books? I've been trying to find some reference to this on his site.

TR now stands at 95K and I believe there's about 15 more to go. For some reason I'm still waiting to move to the end. Not sure why. Do I have that disease some writers get when they see the END coming? Fear of what comes next? I don't think so. I'm actually looking forward to the revision, to growing and deepening the story. Am I just suffering from inertia? Maybe. But honestly, I keep thinking up new paranormal characters, details, abilities, possibilities and want to incorporate them into THIS rough draft before I start over. And just maybe I'm afraid that once it's done, and I start over, the ENTIRE STORY will change and I'll be writing it over - an completely different book. Ugh! I think that's it.

You know how you read a great author's book and subconsciously you compare, okay, consciously, and it seems like David looking at Goliath in terms of dynamism. Well, you know what I'm saying.

Here's a great post by Donald Maaas on Writersunboxed that addresses this awesomeness. 'The Elements of AWE' Part I and Part II

How much do you know before you start writing? What is left to discover at the end of your finished draft?

Amended: I discover two of Sanderson's posts where he has made available the various versions of Warbreaker in two forms, one is a comparison side by side of how he made his revisions in Word 2007. I haven't gotten that one to open yet (slow internet you know).

AAHHH! Here he says "Before I wrote MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE I wrote a rough draft of a book I simply called MISTBORN. After that, I wrote a book I called THE FINAL EMPIRE. These were books set in separate worlds, completely unconnected. When it came time to do a follow-up to ELANTRIS, I looked back at these two books and remembered how fond I was of elements of both of them. I decided to combine them, starting from scratch, and using the best elements of both to create a new book. That became MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE."

Well, now I've faced the worst that can happen. I better get to it.