I was rolling along beautifully. Getting the words written, getting the How To Think Sideways walkthrough put together, getting the NovelWritingSchool.com site running…
And the single piece of new technology around which I’d built the Week Four Walkthrough, putting hours and hours into lesson setup and demonstration, died on me. Second time I used it. Brand new thing. Dead.
And with it, an entire week’s work went down the toilet, and I had to figure out how to completely redo everything while recasting it into a different format.
Hell of a week. I have no new words to report.
Hope your words are coming better.
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Holly, I’m SO sorry to hear about that. I saw the email too. I hope you can at least get a replacement? UGH-UGH-UGH.
I am loving the walkthrough. I know you’re putting in a lot of time and just wanted you to know that it is definitely appreciated. I’m getting so much out of it. (I’ve decided that two of my writing rewards will be getting the language and culture workshops, and any others I’m still missing. I always get multiple new techniques out of your courses). Not sure why I didn’t think of that reward before! It’s perfect
So for last night, I put in another good brainstorming hour. The important thing was finally figuring out the crucial piece of culture I was missing to understand the villain’s plan (and what he needs to overcome to get his plan going).
Of course, now it’s figuring out this important little gimmie [one of those little black holes I've been happily avoiding this whole time]. Time to attack that… my muse and I are working on that some more tonight as I couldn’t get to synthesis last night.
I’m really sorry to hear that, Holly. Sounds like an awful week =(
I just hit 1579 words, and this finishes the first draft of my first novel. What a lumpy and awkward thing it is, but it’s just possible that have been first drafts more broken than mine then ended up turning into fine books, so maybe I can get a fine book out of mine too. I can look into the mess as a whole and see something really cool in it, if I can just figure out how to bring it out.
Congratulations! That’s awesome news!!!
Congratulations!
Thanks, everyone =)
Congrats, Oz!
Finishing a first draft is awesome, especially the first time you do it. Savor this! You’ve earned it.
Don’t worry about lumpy and awkward. There is much revision to be done.
WHEEE! I shower you with confetti! Congratulations on finishing the first draft. That’s wonderful!
2 hour brainstorming session tonight. pages and pages
So I’m pretty sure I figured out how my gimmie works (part 1 accomplished) but now I gotta figure out exactly what/how it threatens my villain. I thought I had it all figured out but it contradicted some other major stuff. So I’m NOT going that route. It’s definitely linking together in some really cool ways though. I’ve felt the connections were there but it’s been somewhat like pulling teeth to get it all together. Anyway very fun session tonight.
Sounds like a productive evening. Good job!
thank you. Hopefully I haven’t jinxed myself
Holly that sounds like a very hard week! Glad to see you still got some stuff up even though you had to start all over
I found what you posted VERY helpful. The Sentence has been hard for me in the sense that I can’t seem to nail one I actually like. I have all the parts down…but the setting is NEVER important. Or maybe it is and I’m just not seeing it. Sigh. Either way this gives me something to work on in the future and hopefully I’ll get better and making The Sentence fit the story.
I’ve been REALLY going slow with HTRYN. Like…I am angry with myself how slow its been. I signed up in August…its been almost a year and I’m only on Lesson 5. I have had some bad Real Life experiences but I don’t think that’s an excuse to be putting it off this much. I’ve had time to work but my muse HATES revision. Holly why is this? Why is it such a war to get my muse to work with me on this? I have another first draft finished…and quite a few ideas in the works…so I AM able to write when I want to…but Muse won’t let me FIX my stories. This is really starting to get me down.
Is this normal? Or am I just not meant to be writer? I thought most writers love to revise…but if thats the case I’m not one of them.
P.s- I hope this doesn’t make me sound like I’m having a pity party. I’m not. I’m just angry I can’t get my Muse to work with my Me on this project to get it finished and out the door! It’s been too long…
So…that being said I’m currently working on Lesson 5 this very moment. I’m less than half but more than a third through now. Maybe I’ll get done this weekend. Depends on when Muse starts fighting again.
Don’t worry, Tori. I signed up …at a similar time to you I think, and I’m going to be resuming from Lesson Two. It’s easy to feel immensely frustrated when you’re going so slow on something that was designed to be taken a week at a time. But we can count ourselves lucky that Holly’s courses are flexible enough to allow us to take them at our own pace.
HTRYN really wasn’t designed to be done a week at at time. I offered that delivery schedule because a lot of folks will skim lessons the first time through—but revision is ten times as difficult as writing first draft, and the skills you’re learning over a period of weeks took me years.
Don’t feel like you’ve fallen behind. HTRYN is the toughest course I offer, bar none.
Don’t know if you saw the other threads about this, but Holly suggested I re-point my Muse back to the first draft to go find the shiny objects and hidden treasure I missed. I started by asking questions about the original characters, and so far, it is working, my Muse got re-directed. This may or may not work with your Muse, but give it a try. My Muse considers the first draft “done” and needs to be enticed back to it. I also make sure all my visuals for my Muse are handy when trying to re-direct her.
Sounds like a tough week. Ah, technology.
No new words yet, but I read through Character Clinic. Ok, fast read, and I marked pages to go back an study. Got one set of questions lined up, but in a stream of consicousness kind of mess. Now I need to format it so I can read it. Then write the interview type questions, that are specific to the story.
No word count, just progress.
I hadn’t even scheduled today for writing but by a lucky coincidence, all my kids were gone this afternoon. Since I had a brilliant idea for a short story yesterday, I sat down and wrote — 2641 words in one sitting. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that much in one go. I’m terribly tired but also very happy with the story.
WOW! That’s wonderful. Congratulations.
Got a short story revised and I’m happy with it. Going to get someone to read it over for me and then I’ll try to send it out somewhere. I wrote 1593 words for today and am working on lesson three of HtTS this evening.
1942 words that felt like magic. It was hard to stop writing today. The longer scenes seem to get me more words at one sitting, because when I get to the twist and stop I’m unable to get into the space of the next scene without a breather in between.
I know it must be getting old hearing about how great this is going, but after all the effort I have put it into this revision, I feel that I’m really getting a payoff at this point.
Hugs on the lost data, Holly. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to recreate something that was already done. Hopefully next week will go better!
After posting yesterday, I had a talk with my Muse, like Holly suggested, inviting her to go back to the first draft with me and find the shiny objects, the hidden treasures, the stuff I missed.
Then, I had some great ideas from one of the characters. I get ideas (or Muse answers me) when I am doing other things like shopping, driving and showering. I think it is because part of my mind is busy, but not too busy, just distracted enough to “hear” the Muse. If not, that extra mind-track runs songs or gets into monkey-fun trouble.
After paying bills I plan to start writing what that character had to say. She is quite the b- … or is she ? Mwa-ha-ha-haaaah (evil laugh)
Woo hoo!! 961 words on Bx2 and I am nowhere near done with this character. She (my MC’s aunt) jumped right past my questions and started babbling, angry about her sister’s life and the failure of her own. She managed to start so many stories about everyone that she even gave me a hook on which to spin the MC’s change in character that I had not thought of before.
I guess asking my Muse to find the shiny objects is working! I am psyched. Wish I had all day to work on this, but I don’t. That’s a nice feeling to get excited about the story again.
Ugh, technical difficulties -suck-. I hope you find some way to retrieve your work and keep going with it.
My weekend was largely screwed by the run-up and aftermath of Taco Night #1 2011 at my place but my work schedule is finally beginning to calm so I’ll be able to chip at my revision stuff a little at work.
My idea is that since I can’t really take my physical revision (big stack of worksheets, huge manuscript, lots of sticky notes) to work with me without raising a lot of questions, I’ll set aside some time each day to rock down to a local cafe after work, and use my work breaks to deal with the material from the Muse Air Strikes – not writing whole scenes, but just jotting down and brainstorming and organizing my notes – so I can summarily ignore them whilst working on my revision.
If I can establish a routine, I might just make it through this. Wish me luck. Also, a close friend has agreed to beta my stuff, and I’m betaing her new writing project, and hopefully that’ll bear fruit for both of us.
WandersNoWhere–Thank you SO much for your reply. It has really encouraged me to continue on even though I’m so hopelessly slow
Still got a bit to go with Lesson 5 but if I can start revising more regularly it should be finished within the next two times I work on it.
I think like you I need some kind of routine…but its hard when I have to take out all those darn worksheets. When I see them I get stressed out instead of excited. Like I’ve said before my Muse hates revision. So much in fact it over-rides my Me on this issue and just makes it plain impossible to accomplish.
I’ve got to find a way to make it through the tough parts even when I don’t want to…I know if I can make it to a few more lessons I’ll get excited again.
Always willing to help, Tori. You can do it.
1208 words on Bx2. Fleshing out a story line suggested from yesterday’s character questions and interview. Very rough, but satisfying. I got so much about so many from this one character it will take me a while to write around what she presented.