Tag: novel

Writing–Writing Retreat Results

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, near Ch...

The week in solitude with only two dogs and three cats to demand my attention and limited Internet access did me some good. Not only did I get several chapters of the Ivy novel written and revised, but I also found a new creative spark for revisions on The World (Saving) Series.

The first two days there I admit that I kept the same slow, slightly distracted pace. But by Saturday night I realized that I was getting bored and needed to do more work to better fill up my time. That was good enough to light the fire under my butt.  I found myself doing twice as much work as I usually did when I was home.

The exceptions were Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday I had a job interview and was gone a good chunk of the day, so I only did some outlining. Thursday I got a chapter written and one revised, but didn’t have the attention span to push it past that. I was looking forward to my aunt coming back that night so I could go home. It was nice to get away, but I was ready to get back to my bed and my fridge and my animals.

I’m pleased with the productivity I had that week and I hope at least a little of it carries over back at home. The Ivy novel is going to continue to take its dear sweet time and I’m going to get frustrated with my lack of progress on it and I’m going to deal with my bad habit of procrastinating, but I think this burst of productivity will help propel me through the hard parts. And I’m really glad that I had a chance to tinker with The World (Saving) Series again. It’s gotten me excited to get back to the project and I think I can hammer out the revisions on the first third of the novel before the month ends.

In the end, it’s all about discipline and focus. I need to carry the writer’s retreat mindset of getting my work done in my mind all the time.

A saying has floated on my Twitter timeline repeatedly and it’s so very true:

Writing is 90% not getting distracted by the Internet.

Writing–Breaking in a New Novel Method

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Red High Heel Pumps

I’ve spent the past couple of days breaking in a new pair of heels. I haven’t worn heels for quite a while. I’ve gained some weight and messed up my left knee since the last time I did. It’s taking some work to get used to them. If I’m going to be standing in them for several hours, comfort is important.

The same thing could be said for this new novel I’m writing. I’m taking this new approach of outlining a few chapters, writing them, then revising them. After doing it for several weeks (I started back in April), I can definitely say it’s taking some getting used to.

On the plus side, I’m able to go back and fix major story problems immediately. I don’t have to wait until I’m finished with the first draft and into revisions to fix something that’s nagging at me. For example, the first three chapters of this draft were terrible. They were a downright boring info dump. So before I went on, I had the opportunity to fix that and better mete out the information while keeping it all interesting. I don’t have that specter hanging over my head as I move on.

On the other hand, it’s definitely slow progress. If I were doing this in typical NaNoWriMo style, I’d either be done or at the very least, close to done by now. I’d have a shitty first draft as usual, but I would be done. And that shitty first draft would probably need a lot of work. As of right now, I haven’t gotten past the initial first story-fixing revision on any of my novel manuscripts.

So with this new approach, what I can guarantee that the draft I’m left with when I write the last sentence should be in better shape than a draft written the NaNo way. That’s the theory, anyway. It will still need revisions because what I write will always need revisions. But it shouldn’t need as much in the way of revisions. At the very least the story should be solid.

It’s too soon to tell if this will become my main way of writing novels. I doubt it. After all, I don’t plan on wearing my heels every day. But this will be a nice method to pull out in between NaNoWriMos when I’m feeling restless and tired of working on short stories and sick of working on novel revisions and I need to create something original or when I have an idea I just can’t shake.

For the those times when I need something a little different, I think this will work just fine.

Writing–Happy Endings

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I don’t write happy endings.

Okay, I do, but I don’t.

It’s something I’ve noticed as I accumulate short stories and novel first drafts and it’s not just because I write a lot of horror. That’s not to say that I don’t write satisfactory endings in the sense that the plot is tied up and the questions are all answered because I do that. Sometimes I even do it in an a happy way. You have to offer up a satisfying conclusion if you want to write a story worth reading.

The happy endings I’m talking about are the stories that end with the girl getting the guy or the guy getting the girl. I’ve written a few stories and some novels in which that is a possibility. The set-up is there. But I don’t do anything with it. I might play a little with flirting or a smidge of sexual tension, but in the end, the characters ride off into the sunset…alone.

It seems to be an expectation for most stories involving a man and a woman that they’ll end up together. It’s an expectation I don’t live up to and I don’t live up to it on purpose.

I don’t think it’s always necessary. Just because two characters share the same story doesn’t mean they have to hook up by the end of it. Maybe they’d really like to. Maybe they do hook up at some point after the story ends. But for the time period that’s written about concerning these characters, it doesn’t happen. It happens if it’s necessary for the story and so many stories I write don’t find it necessary. And that’s okay! It’s better to serve the story rather than shoehorn something in to satisfy a reader expectation that clashes with everything else about the story.

I think that frustrates people. The last paragraph coupling happens so often that they’re disappointed when it doesn’t happen and they somehow interpret that as an unhappy ending, no matter how upbeat the story ending was. And though I have quite a few upbeat endings (I may be over estimating a little), I still manage to disappoint people.

This doesn’t bother me as much as it should. I’m satisfying people whether they want to admit it or not. Not every ending has to be happy.

Those last two sentences are filled with a lot more innuendo than I intended, but when talking about satisfying happy endings, you run into that risk.

Writing–The Other Projects

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The World (Saving) Series isn’t my only novel project I’ve got in existence. Due to some successful go rounds at NaNoWriMo as well as a pretty productive period during a six month period one year, I’ve actually got a few in various stages.

When I wrote the first one, now titled Spirited in Spite, I didn’t realize that I was creating a universe. It wasn’t until I wrote (and then lost in the Great Crash) A Simple Matter of Mind Control that I was on to something. By the time I finished the first draft of A Tale of Two Lady Killers, the concept of this universe solidified itself. It wasn’t until The World (Saving) Series that I gave this universe a name, The ‘Skirts, and decided all of the pieces fit. All of the main characters are “on the outskirts of normal”, as one of the characters explains. They all have some sort of paranormal attribute. To me it makes sense and I hope I can make it work.

As I mentioned, they’re all in various stages. Spirited in Spite is waiting to be rewritten (I’ve already done a few chapters and made notes on the rest). A Simple Matter of Mind Control, first draft lost to the Great Crash, is outlined and waiting to be written again, the changes I was planning to make already incoporated into the new outline. A Tale of Two Lady Killers has already had one round of revisions/rewrites.

And we all know where The World (Saving) Series is.

I’m hoping…no, intending…to get back to all of these projects and make something readable out of them. I think they all hold the potential to be good stories and I want to see them through to the end.

Not only would I like to get these stories told, but they also provide me with the opportunity to get into the habit of finishing things.

But that’s another blog post for another day.

Writing–Revising the Long Ones

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Through the power of NaNoWriMo, I’ve written a few novels. First drafts are always the hardest for me and NaNo is a great way for me to get that big idea out of my head and onto paper. However, I’ve only made it through one round of revisions on a couple of them before something else took their place on the priority list.

I keep the first round of revisions simple. I read through the manuscript and make notes on story elements that I want to change. Then I go back and make the changes. Depending on how bad the first draft is (usually pretty bad), I may end up rewriting a big portion of the novel. At the very least, a few chapters are guaranteed to be rewritten. It’s all part of the process.

And it’s a long process, but in the past I’ve been really good at sitting down and getting it done. Sometimes ideas occur to me during the revision process, but unless it immediately pertains to continuity, I rarely go back and change anything. I just note it for the next round (which I’ve never gotten to, but I still intend to get ther at some point).

However, I’ve run into something interesting with revising The World (Saving) Series. Because it’s taking me so long to revise it, the temptation to go back to the beginning with my new ideas and start on the second round of revisions.

I’m resisting this because I think it will work better for me to go through the whole manuscript and make these changes first. I’m sticking with the method that has worked before, basically. I don’t want to start the trend of going back and revising what I’ve already revised before I’m done revising or I’ll never be done revising, you know?

I envy the people that can revise as they go or stick with one chapter until it’s perfect and then move on to the next. If I did that, I’d never be done. Or I’d always be going back. My best bet is to keep chugging through one round after another to ensure that I finish the round.

It’s the slower option, but I think that right now, it’s the one that suits me best.

In this one case, I’ve got to resist temptation.