The hard part

Now comes the hard part.  Editing and cover design are the toughest parts of writing. I'm 50,000 words into a story and finally have the 25% point crisis. Now it's for sure I'm not writing a 200,000 word book. That's just not my style. The crisis will require a serious rewrite. Serious rewrites are not my thing either.  My philosophy is to finish the story with the crisis involved and the go back and weave the needed changes in.

Covers are another story all together.  I have been fortunate enough to have photos in my own library of camera bug history to use for covers.  But, not this time. This outing will require a trip with the camera. On my book STATE OF THREAT I used a photo my mother took sixty years ago. On this book STATE OF PERIL I need a hacienda, a green truck, and a man with binoculars to make what i want on the cover. I can see I need to do some photo manipulations.

How do you handle these problems?

Write.

What Now?????

Editing is the pits. Three novels and a creative non fiction piece to the word 'end.' Personally edited three to five times. Still finding booboos. Yuk. A spell checker and grammar checker don't cover it. Eyes on the paper is all there is. Mine are crossed.

Because editing is so much of a bummer to me, I am trying to begin a new wip (work in progress), but nothing is working.  I have trashed four false starts. There is no hook coming to mind. Not a single plot shocker hits the paper. It's almost like I was afraid to have another manuscript to edit. Just the thought of which sends unwelcomed tingles up and down my spine like an electric shock. Never did like shocks.

Oh, well, I guess I'll just write. How about you?

Endo

It is frequently enjoyable to come to the end of a writing project. There are four, count them, four on the shelf. I have enjoyed all four. Now I have a problem. WHAT'S NEXT?

There are 18 ideas in my notebooks.  Which one? I have not fleshed out the basic, one page plot line for any of them. The one sentence idea is there.

My solution - I will take the one I relate to best and just start writing.  Somewhere along the path to the end I will find a beginning.

Go write, quit hanging out on the net.

Life Gets in the Way

Life has really been getting in the way of this blog and the rest of my writing. I have tried doing a tight calendar, which just isn't me, setting an appointed time to write every day. Life gets in the way. I tried making myself do an hour on the keys before I could do the things I like and, you guessed it, life got in the way.

My style is pantser and binges. I write what the voices tell me and when they are talking many words hit the page. For an organizational style, I use piles. There was a time the cleaning lady wanted to do the carpet in my office. I was devastated. Took me a week to repile my piles in the proper sequence and place.

BUT, it hasn't been super bad. God allows me to assist small churches to make repairs and there's a lot of need there. He also gives me the urge to get outdoors and hike or whatever. A small hike last week about did me in. Beautiful country for the first day and on the second, we stumbled through cedar dotted grasslands on old two rut roads covered with round rocks and pot holes. Had to stop in order to look up at the scenery which wasn't worth stopping for. Went camping and fishing, wind blew, temperature dropped, wind came up, and caught no fish. Did get a couple chapters of self editing

AND, I have 76,000 words toward my latest book, ARIZONA. Just wrapping up the war, the uprising, and the extortion to come to the last page. Thinking of throwing out the extortion and using it for a followup book using same characters, except for the dead ones of course. I'll lose over 20,000 words on this book if I do, but then again, the book needs more showing and less telling anyhow. Showing takes more words than telling, so that will balance out.

Blessing, and keep writing.

Editing

Editing appears to be the toughest part of writing. It is righting our writing for publisher Wright. Sorry, I just had to say that and get it out once and for all. It is amazing that as you edit a piece you wrote days, weeks, or months ago, you find all manner of puzzles to decipher.
For example, in a paragraph concerning a female and a cat I found the following; He view the far aittin in the dosill. 
I know the He had to be She but the rest eluded me until I started looking at the keyboard and thinking of the context this was written to be in. Bottom line, this passage should have read, She saw the cat sitting on the windowsill. Not an exciting passage, but one that fit the paragraph and situation. 
Enjoy your editing.

Excitement

Have you gone to the NaNoWriMo site or gotten their latest e-mail?  They are planning things for the whole year. What have you done with the work you did during November? Have you edited yet? Maybe February ought to be NaNoEdMo for all of us.

As for me, I will be digging out the thumb drive with VENGEANCE on it and editing. The one piece of advise I took to heart for November was to turn off the editor inside me. I pulled out the printout of chapter One a week or so ago and was sickened by the typos and misspellings in the first two pages.  Oh, well, nobody asks for perfect on the first draft, do they?

Is there anyone who would like to work together on editing each other's work?

Keep writing.

Working

Somehow I think no one is watching.

Tell me about what you do and why you looked at this blog.

How bout some ideas for improving this here blog?

I show cud dues it in countrified weighs. huh?

thanks, doug

NaNoWriMo 3

YeeeeeeHaaaaaaw. I made it in my first year on NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. 59,000 words + in the 30 days.

How did you do? One word is a good start on that book that is in you. Old Chinese Proverb - The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. I don't know why we always quote old Chinese Proverbs, but they sure do come in handy when you need an authority for reference.

Okay, so you have some words that were put down in a hurry. What now? You may be so good that this doesn't apply to you, but the rest of us have a lot of editing to do. I looked back over the first five chapters of my effort and realized it is going to take a lot of work, not just in spelling and grammar, but in continuity and just plain prose, to make it work as a story, let alone a book.

The first thing is a time line with the characters accounted for, or else you have a character in two places at the same time or almost dead in one scene and kicking butt in the next, two hours later.  Might work for Batman, but not my heroine.

The second is continuity of location, people, times, clothes, etc. as you go through the story. Notes under your timeline will help with this.

My third thing is dialogue. Make it fit the scenes and keep all the superfluities out of your characters' mouths.

If this helps you, feedback, please.

Keep writing.

NaNoWriMo 2

Did you get into it with a vigor? I finished on Sunday the 25th. What an exercise for any writer to get 50,000 words in 30 days.  I can hardly wait to read what I wrote.  I took one piece of advise very seriously and turned off the editor mode in my brain and stayed within the boundaries of the write mode. Try it you'll like it. 

Till next time, keep writing.