Ooops

It's Thursday. THURSDAY.

Do you see where this is going?

I forgot about the Monday Accountability Report. No wonder I get nothing done.

So--fast and easy. Last week's goals were, for Project #1, to finish editing 13 scenes (I finished 7), and for Project #2, to finish the final draft of the March story (finished the first draft).

Goals for this--ahem, almost-over--week:

STOP PROCRASTINATING

Accountability Week 3

I'm beginning to dread these #writemotivation posts. No, no epic fail like last week this time--I actually got quite a bit of writing time in. More than the allotted 4 hours a day most days.

But little to show for it.

So I'm celebrating--I stuck to the schedule (sort of), got into the discipline of sitting my meager butt down in front of the keyboard and starting. But I'm also moping, because in spite of this schedule and this discipline, both of which cost me a psychological arm and a leg, progress is slow.

Embellishment--or insight?

Eternal gratitude, Janet Reid, for sharing this (a while back) and (more recently) this example on Spare and Elegant Writing.

Does this resonate as much with you as it did with me? How far are you along in the process of simplifying yourself? We all know adverbs must be avoided, substituted with stronger verbs. What other pitfalls have you discovered in your own writing?

Steinbeck vs. Hemingway on Writing

Steinbeck:

Hemingway:

Perhaps this is nothing but the pantster vs. (sort of) plotter approach, but I think it goes deeper than that. What do you think? How do you do it? Do you start your writing day by "recapping" what you did the day before, or start fresh and unencumbered? Do you revise as you work, or leave it all for the end? What works best for you?

NaNo Update 2012/11/14

I have been remiss in my NaNo updates, haven't I? Yeah... Well, I've been remiss in my NaNo, period. I'm far behind my goal of 35K (2.5K per day x 14 days)--almost by half.

Oops.

Why? I haven't finished revising Novel #1. Revising a novel and NaNo'ing require different sets of skills--for NaNo one wants more words, it's all about twisting open that faucet of creativity all the way, but revising requires cutting words, evaluating each one and making sure it carries its weight. You can probably imagine what a mess my head is from trying to do both.

Even on separate days. See those brown lines below that stay the same day after day? Those are the days I've spent editing MANTRA.

BUT I will catch up. Today I will write 5K words, no excuses. No dog rescuing, no laundry (well, maybe a load. Or two). No leaving this chair until I have a minimum of 5K in that section at the top that says Words Written Today.

No excuses.

And I'll post the updated screenshot sometime before midnight to prove it.

NaNo Spotlight Interview

Today the great Chris Kelworth features me in his NaNo Spotlight series. Come on over and join the conversation!

WIP Update

It's coming close to the one-year anniversary of me typing THE END on this WIP of mine on August 15th last year. As a pantster I knew I had tons of revision ahead of me, that THE END was merely the beginning... But I never imagined exactly how much, or how tough it would be.

Becky Levine on Critiques & Time

If you're a writer and you missed Becky Levine's post on giving critiques time--how could you miss it? Even Nathan Bransford picked it up, it's that good--here's the link. Seriously, read it.

You missed me?

I know, I'm a bad friend. Worse blogger. I've abandoned you, this awesome community of awesomer people, and although I know I don't deserve it, I'd like to humbly ask your forgiveness. I'd also like to explain what I've been up to--no, not an excuse. Just an explanation... And a couple of funny stories.

First: the MS. Did I mention editors are awesome? You missed that post, you say? Well, I'll say it again--sadly, not as well as Chuck Wendig--editors ROCK. And as a result of such rocking, my MS is undergoing some sorely needed reality checks.

REALITY CHECK ONE: the original manuscript took place 90% in 1995, only 10% in 2003. That wasn't working. The 1995 story is lovely and very cute, but it only acquires relevance in retrospect.

And the "retrospect" part was missing--duh. Major oversight. A few minor ones (like tension) also fell short. So I decided to add more into the 2003 timeline.

But the novel already was above 100K. In order to add even the word "retrospect", I had to cut. Yeah. Bitter moments.


REALITY CHECK TWO: Not only was the novel already long, but my editor also happened to drop the hint that there might be some "verbiage" that perhaps didn't add quite as much as I thought it did. 


Yeah--she's too tactful for her own good. But I'm good at reading between the lines, and I started noticing longish sentences, explanatory dialogue, scenes that didn't go anywhere... 


My editor, with a Mona Lisa smile, said, "be ruthless". 


Best advice ever. 

REALITY CHECK THREE: Another gem of a morsel from my editor: you're in love with your MCs. You solve problems for them. You don't let problems happen to them. In other words, m'dear (aka amateur), tension is lacking all over the place. It's not there. 


Yep, I looked, and--lo and behold. Zilch.


So now, woven into both the 2003 and 1995 timelines, a steel thread of razor-sharp tension has been added. Ok, is being added.

~ * ~

That's my first excuse for dropping the ball on Quiet Laughter here. I have another two for later, funny in a Fawlty Towers way, that I hope will soften your heart and earn me your forgiveness. Even a single iota of--


Yes, that's the prose that got me into trouble in the first place. Let me just say then that I love you, Quiet Laughter readers. I do. From the deepest recesses of my heart and liver, from within emotional places within my psyche that have no name still A lot.

Crafting Wickedly Effective Prose: SFWC

One of the sessions at the San Francisco Writers' Conference that I found not just ultra useful but super entertaining was Constance Hale's "Crafting Wickedly Effective Prose". Visit her site for more resources (seriously, writer heaven) and info on her book Sin and Syntax, whose tagline is--taah-daah--How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose.

Connie turned out to be one of those wonderful people that do great in front of a crowd. She came across as natural and funny without seeming to try, and the content she shared was not just interesting and relevant, but also practical and hands-on.

Here are my notes on Connie's session. I hope you find them useful, if not as entertaining and alive as the session itself. Should have recorded her :)

I, uh, dropped the ball

February was a crazy month. Yep, my first writers' conference, my first experience of pitching to agents. Since the beginning of January, I worked hard on getting the WIP (Restoring Experience) into the best shape I could in order to pitch it at the conference. I read articles and books on writing, pitching, and querying that I should have read months ago. It felt like cramming for SATs. Then, at the conference, a brilliant editor (Alan Rinzler) asked me to send him my book, so for a solid week I did nothing but revise, revise, revise (yes, again) to get the MS ready for him.

The Vagaries of (Verb) Tense Consistency

Another fantastic list from The Writer's Resource, this time on verb tense consistency.  Their post today on Maintaining Verb Consistency In Your Story in your story is a list of six links (including 3 by university publications) on that most complex of the writer's nemesis--the verb tense.  The links take you to both recent and not-so-recent posts, and they range from the basic (what's present tense?) to the more nuanced (when to change tenses, for example).

In the online writers' group I joined earlier this year there's been ongoing discussion on the proper usage of verb tenses, especially the subjunctive (which apparently some people tend to ignore or maul unforgivably) and the past perfect (I'd been in the house for five hours before he arrived).  Sometimes a refresher or a quick reference guide on these comes in handy.

Just for fun, which of these sentences sound "righter" to your ear?

- She asked that she not be disturbed until after the performance.
- She asked not to be disturbed until the performance was finished.

- He'd been in my life for such a long time that I no longer remembered how we'd met.
- He was in my life for such a long time that I no longer remembered how we met.

Hope this resource comes in handy!

More on Revision

I really shouldn't be posting about this now.  I should be focused on NaNo, writing like crazy...  But this post I just found, from Janice Hardy over at The Other Side of the Story, is so great and struck so many chords for me, that I had to share.  And also, this way I'll have it linked here and easily findable when I finally get around to finishing that hardest of the hard revisions for Restoring Experience--the last one.


If you're revising and you haven't seen Janice's post yet (it's from yesterday), please take a jump over now and bookmark it, or print it, or do whatever you do with valuable information on the internet.  I thought it was brilliant--hopefully you will too.


In the immortal words of Rick Bylina (another fantastic blog on writing by a self-published author of uncommon wit and brilliant insight), Write on!

Six Sentence Sunday (Oct. 23)

And...  One more week of Six Sentence Sunday.  I'm getting into the habit, although it's still a challenge to PICK the six sentences I share.  I'm trying to keep linearity (is that even a word?) and continuity so that you "get" into the story, but at the same time I want to share the most interesting bits or the ones that I'm tweaking in order to get your feedback.  *Sigh*.  Choices, choices.