Showing posts with label Kick in the Pants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kick in the Pants. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Ruts and the Organic Muse


As promised, I moved on to the business of TR's ending. I stopped analyzing, planning and organizing the scenes in advance and just began again on the last scenes. And discovered why it had been so hard to know how to proceed.

The scene I was writing is the hero's black moment. The thing he's been dreading the most is happening and the heroine is introducing him to reality. Unfortunately, the author hasn't figured out the secrets to this reality so the heroine is having trouble 'splainin' it to said hero. Now, hold on, I didn't say I quit writing. I'm still going.

Bill Kirton of Living and Writing and Other Stuff commented a couple days ago, "There's no doubt, though, that whatever technique you adopt (careful pre-plotting, wading straight in with only a vague idea of your direction, a single event or a multitude of them), you're dealing with an organic whole which will grow in whatever direction it wants, however disciplined you are. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that disciplining it too severely risks stifling it altogether"

I'd been working and reworking my redetermined ending for this book for a month. Suddenly, as if struck by the lightning bolt from muse heaven, I realized that instead of trying to make the scenes fit my outline, I needed to just start writing and allow it to follow its own path. I know. DUHHHHH, Marley. But you know, we get stuck in ruts and need a shove to get out sometimes.

So I picked up my pen and my notebook and started writing. I wrote that HARD scene with the hero and heroine and just kept writing, penning around 6000 words in two days. I believe I may finish the book by hand as the plot seems to be developing more organically that way. Thanks, Bill.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Getting on the Stick


That expression came from using the gearshift to GET THE CAR GOING -in other words - stop stalling and get on with it.

Fear of the unknown has been inhibiting my progress. I've been consolidating my notes and research, characters, paranormal rules, etc. into Scrivener. Sure that stuff needed to be done, but it doesn't need to take forever.

Yesterday, I made some real headway on the file, moving characters into my AS NEEDED file, deleting some old scenes, and making a list of the PNE questions I'd thought I needed to answer before moving on. Turns out almost all of them can be answered as I write. And they will be better answers in the context of what I'm discovering during the process.

Today, I'm going to concentrate on going through my synopses and old scenes to see what needs to be deleted at least temporarily. By the end of the week, I should be able to get my scene files cleaned up and I'll have almost made my goal of October 1st. I'll definitely make the BIAW deadline for October.

Thanks to fellow writers, Leah, Cadence, Michael and Cheryl, for the kick in the pants!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Kick in the Pants wk4

Wow. Time flies. Fourth week. This challenge has really helped me to push myself which has boosted my confidence and helped me define some habits, which my husband would probably say weren't the ones he wanted me to develop.

I used to think I'd start to work writing as soon as I got up since we get up before dawn. But that hasn't happened. We have our coffee watch the news, eat a little breakfast, I check my emails, then around 8 or 9 it seems I get started and write until around 2 or 5 or 7, whatever flows.

Last week I wrote 15, 200 words! Yea! This week 4,000, got my business cards ready for the conference, worked on my pitch, helped Joe with crawfish, delivered mail.

Some days the end seems further and further away, but I don't have any doubt that I will finish both my first WIPs soon and submit them, both 90% complete. Ten days til the conference, only 8 calendar writing days.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Kick in the Pants progress

I set goals that I thought I would reach on our Kick in the Pants challenge given by Christine D'Abo. Here's my Wednesday report for the first half of week 1.

Goal: My goal was for 10,000 per week. Minimum.

From Sunday through today, I wrote approximately 4500.

This week's goal was to finish my first MS (15K) and move on and finish MOL for the Shreveport Conference Mar 1. Well, I reached 15k but...I can't actually say I finished it.

Complications:
I kept writing and writing and it just wasn't happening so I checked my settings and found that I'd unchecked inclusion setting for some folders in my writing program which had reduced my word count. Long story short, I'm over my goal of 15k but now I have to either lengthen the book or cut it to complete it which I will do later, it's not due til end of March.

Forgot we had a deer to process which would take half my Monday so I wrote 1700 by noon then took a four hour break, returning to investigate the word count issue.

Started on MOL today but had to re-familiarize myself with it again since I haven't looked at it for over a month and I'd planned changes to the story direction. So, no forward progress today.

All in all I'm pleased with my progress and will write forward tomorrow. If I get 2000 a day through Saturday I can still meet my goal of 10k this week.