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Stick a fork in me, guys, because ...
... I'm done!
At 65,000 words, that's one (1) rough draft of an original YA fantasy novel. *lays down pen*
(Well, okay, I write on the computer mostly, but laying down the keyboard is a much less satisfying metaphor. Besides, I'm still typing on it. *g*)
It's not entirely done from start to finish; there's one key scene in the first third that's still a rough, skeletal outline -- I didn't have a firm enough grasp on either the characters or the magic system to write it at the time, which is just as well, because I would've had to completely rewrite it anyway. The ending also feels a bit abrupt; I think I need to add an epilogue to tie things off more smoothly.
And I'm not going to write those extra scenes now, because I think I really need to just shelve this one for a while, let it sit, and then go back later and see if it's really worth cleaning it up and polishing it into a smooth second draft. I have some serious doubts about key aspects of the plot, and like I was saying to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
auburn the other day, I think this might end up being another pound of clay on the wheel -- a learning experience and perhaps a character-mine for future projects. But I'm not really sure; I think everyone hates a story right after finishing it, so I need to let it sit and then go back to it with fresher and less jaded eyes.
But, YAY. This is the third original novel I've finished. The first was my writing-a-page-a-day experiment in 1994, when I was about 17; I wrote a 500-page epic fantasy novel in about a year, and while it was, let's say, not that great, it was awfully heady to realize that I could actually do it. The second was my NaNo in 2007, which I really like and which is, I think, totally good enough to rewrite into a clean 2.0 draft ... but it's going to require a ton of rewriting. I'd like to get to it sometime next year. (But first, I want to tackle something new.)
And then there's this one. I had the initial idea and wrote the first couple of chapters in 2004. Then in about 2006, I picked it up again, and made it to about 45,000 words before stalling out in a sea of loose plot ends. Something was really not working, but I couldn't figure out what.
This time, I tore it down totally, tossed out some 20,000 words, and massively rewrote a lot of the rest. I moved scenes and whole chapters around -- at one point I had a stack of colored index cards spread out on the floor, trying to figure out what happened where. At the end of the rewriting and rearranging, I had 26,000 words constituting the first of two "halves" of the novel (there's a natural plot break there), plus a number of later scenes that would need to be revised to fit with the plot changes.
Looking at my writing calendar, it looks like I launched into Part 2 on Sept. 26. And now, we're 40,000 words and one novel later. :D I can't take credit for having written every single one of those words in three weeks. There were quite a few scenes already written. But my daily word totals on my writing calendar claim that I've written about 30,000 words in the last three weeks -- and this was despite having my old job call me on Sept. 27 to tell me that (if I was available) they needed me back TOMORROW and for the month of October. And then, on top of that, a nasty cold totally kicked my ass for the last week and a half. At times I've been so dead tired that I can hardly stand up ... but I've still been counting the hours at work until I could go home and write.
I think I really needed the self-confidence from having finished this thing. I've started and then abandoned so many projects in the last few years, and spent countless hours worldbuilding original novels and series, only to find some sort of fatal flaw and wander on to something else. Even if this book is too flawed to publish, I needed to get past the first 10-20,000 words of something, because that's where I've been getting stuck -- I'll launch into the initial YAY period, creating characters and developing the world and writing like crazy until I hit a wall at the point where I have to actually develop a plot. Fanfic or original, it doesn't seem to matter; I just can't seem to finish any damn thing.
Just knowing that I can tough it out for 65,000 words means so much to me right now.
But more than that, I feel like I've learned so much about writing and especially plotting on this project. I've never been able to make an outline work for me, but I think I'm going to give it a good try on my next novel, because there was so much stress and frustration involved in trying to backfit a plot to the first half of the novel once I'd figured out where it was going. And I feel like I'm getting a better feel for what sorts of outlining techniques work for me. (Day-by-day breakdowns of where everyone is at any given time? HELLA USEFUL. Also, index cards. There is something about being able to physically swap scenes around that is more useful for me than huge text files of notes.)
Aside from all of that technical stuff, I was really fascinated to watch the characters' voices and personalities develop and become so easy and effortless to write. In the beginning, I really struggled with them, but towards the end the words were just flowing out -- I got to know my characters as people. I could feel the relative shift in the ease of writing them, from the struggle at the beginning, to being able to blast out 3000 words in an evening because I knew them so well that I could "hear" their conversations and anticipate what they'd do in any given situation.
I also got to work on just letting go of the voice in the back of my head telling me that I have to write "well", and getting caught up in the story instead. For some reason it's easy for me to do in fanfic, and horribly difficult to do in original fiction. Actually, with this project, I got some practice at consciously switching over from my paralyzingly self-conscious "original writer brain" into my gleeful, id-focused "fanfic writer brain". The better I got to know the characters, the easier it was for me to do that. (Lesson learned: I am a character writer. I always have been. Above all else, I need to love and know my characters. Fanfic is easier for me in large part because I know and love the characters already. In my teens, I used to plan not individual books but series. Epics. I need to start doing that again, I think.)
In short: *\o/*
Okay, now -- I had set aside the entire month of October (tentatively) for working on this novel, so now I have some free time, so to speak! The rest of October is going to be given over to fanfic (my SpookMe story; probably try to get started on my Sheppard_HC one too) and brainstorming/worldbuilding for my NaNo novel. Yes, Virginia, there is a NaNo this year!
At 65,000 words, that's one (1) rough draft of an original YA fantasy novel. *lays down pen*
(Well, okay, I write on the computer mostly, but laying down the keyboard is a much less satisfying metaphor. Besides, I'm still typing on it. *g*)
It's not entirely done from start to finish; there's one key scene in the first third that's still a rough, skeletal outline -- I didn't have a firm enough grasp on either the characters or the magic system to write it at the time, which is just as well, because I would've had to completely rewrite it anyway. The ending also feels a bit abrupt; I think I need to add an epilogue to tie things off more smoothly.
And I'm not going to write those extra scenes now, because I think I really need to just shelve this one for a while, let it sit, and then go back later and see if it's really worth cleaning it up and polishing it into a smooth second draft. I have some serious doubts about key aspects of the plot, and like I was saying to
auburn the other day, I think this might end up being another pound of clay on the wheel -- a learning experience and perhaps a character-mine for future projects. But I'm not really sure; I think everyone hates a story right after finishing it, so I need to let it sit and then go back to it with fresher and less jaded eyes.But, YAY. This is the third original novel I've finished. The first was my writing-a-page-a-day experiment in 1994, when I was about 17; I wrote a 500-page epic fantasy novel in about a year, and while it was, let's say, not that great, it was awfully heady to realize that I could actually do it. The second was my NaNo in 2007, which I really like and which is, I think, totally good enough to rewrite into a clean 2.0 draft ... but it's going to require a ton of rewriting. I'd like to get to it sometime next year. (But first, I want to tackle something new.)
And then there's this one. I had the initial idea and wrote the first couple of chapters in 2004. Then in about 2006, I picked it up again, and made it to about 45,000 words before stalling out in a sea of loose plot ends. Something was really not working, but I couldn't figure out what.
This time, I tore it down totally, tossed out some 20,000 words, and massively rewrote a lot of the rest. I moved scenes and whole chapters around -- at one point I had a stack of colored index cards spread out on the floor, trying to figure out what happened where. At the end of the rewriting and rearranging, I had 26,000 words constituting the first of two "halves" of the novel (there's a natural plot break there), plus a number of later scenes that would need to be revised to fit with the plot changes.
Looking at my writing calendar, it looks like I launched into Part 2 on Sept. 26. And now, we're 40,000 words and one novel later. :D I can't take credit for having written every single one of those words in three weeks. There were quite a few scenes already written. But my daily word totals on my writing calendar claim that I've written about 30,000 words in the last three weeks -- and this was despite having my old job call me on Sept. 27 to tell me that (if I was available) they needed me back TOMORROW and for the month of October. And then, on top of that, a nasty cold totally kicked my ass for the last week and a half. At times I've been so dead tired that I can hardly stand up ... but I've still been counting the hours at work until I could go home and write.
I think I really needed the self-confidence from having finished this thing. I've started and then abandoned so many projects in the last few years, and spent countless hours worldbuilding original novels and series, only to find some sort of fatal flaw and wander on to something else. Even if this book is too flawed to publish, I needed to get past the first 10-20,000 words of something, because that's where I've been getting stuck -- I'll launch into the initial YAY period, creating characters and developing the world and writing like crazy until I hit a wall at the point where I have to actually develop a plot. Fanfic or original, it doesn't seem to matter; I just can't seem to finish any damn thing.
Just knowing that I can tough it out for 65,000 words means so much to me right now.
But more than that, I feel like I've learned so much about writing and especially plotting on this project. I've never been able to make an outline work for me, but I think I'm going to give it a good try on my next novel, because there was so much stress and frustration involved in trying to backfit a plot to the first half of the novel once I'd figured out where it was going. And I feel like I'm getting a better feel for what sorts of outlining techniques work for me. (Day-by-day breakdowns of where everyone is at any given time? HELLA USEFUL. Also, index cards. There is something about being able to physically swap scenes around that is more useful for me than huge text files of notes.)
Aside from all of that technical stuff, I was really fascinated to watch the characters' voices and personalities develop and become so easy and effortless to write. In the beginning, I really struggled with them, but towards the end the words were just flowing out -- I got to know my characters as people. I could feel the relative shift in the ease of writing them, from the struggle at the beginning, to being able to blast out 3000 words in an evening because I knew them so well that I could "hear" their conversations and anticipate what they'd do in any given situation.
I also got to work on just letting go of the voice in the back of my head telling me that I have to write "well", and getting caught up in the story instead. For some reason it's easy for me to do in fanfic, and horribly difficult to do in original fiction. Actually, with this project, I got some practice at consciously switching over from my paralyzingly self-conscious "original writer brain" into my gleeful, id-focused "fanfic writer brain". The better I got to know the characters, the easier it was for me to do that. (Lesson learned: I am a character writer. I always have been. Above all else, I need to love and know my characters. Fanfic is easier for me in large part because I know and love the characters already. In my teens, I used to plan not individual books but series. Epics. I need to start doing that again, I think.)
In short: *\o/*
Okay, now -- I had set aside the entire month of October (tentatively) for working on this novel, so now I have some free time, so to speak! The rest of October is going to be given over to fanfic (my SpookMe story; probably try to get started on my Sheppard_HC one too) and brainstorming/worldbuilding for my NaNo novel. Yes, Virginia, there is a NaNo this year!
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