Hi gang.
Well its been just about 4 months since Bribie, and I haven’t written a single word of my second draft. It’s not like I haven’t been thinking about the rewrite, on the contrary, I’ve been doing a shiteload of pondering. Massive amounts of thought and consideration have gone into the blank space that follows the words “Chapter One” in my second draft Word doc. I poured sooooo much information into my skull in the months that followed the retreat, from reading other books to studying writing guides to going to festivals to scanning blogs to plotting sequels to rerereading the first draft that I suddenly had to stop. Let it all go in, and down….
Am I the only one?
Jeremy
Jeremy, I know the feeling. I’ve started a sequel to my zombie book and have hit the 700 word mark after two months. I’m thinking about it too much, which sounds the same as you. Writing websites and books are the problem, I reckon. Too much advice. Read this, do that. It’s like life. You should eat this many vegetables, do this much exercise, spend this amount of time doing that. If you spent your whole life doing it, you wouldn’t live. It’s the same with writing.
My only suggestion – maybe you should write something else. A short story, a poem…anything other than what you ‘think’ you should write. At least then you’ll be writing.
(Mind you, I just realised I’m offering more writing advice instead of writing myself…it’s a vicious circle).
Oh I carefully put the manuscript away a couple of months ago and designed a boardgame instead, just waiting till it felt like the right time to go back to it. Which I think is just about to strike…. which is a relief.
Yeah blogging was a big distraction too…
Thanks J, such a relief to know I’m not the only one…
I became hyper-sensitive to the huge number of structural problems (she canna take much more, cap’n) and couldn’t face the lo-o-o-o-ong process of figuring out how to wrassle it into shape.
Every time I tried to address one of the MANY issues raised by Deonie, I’d find it was the thread on your jumper that holds it all together. You know the one, you tug at it because you can’t be naffed going for the scissors – and a whole sleeve falls off.
But I’m ecstatic to report movement at last! A few things have helped me along the way – Nancy Kress’s excellent book “Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint” (thanks for the suggestion, Marianne!) and also the snowflake method as described by Randy Ingermanson in his website (www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php). I’m sure it’s not for everyone but it seems to have really kick-started me. HEAPS of new ideas and solutions have been emerging and I can’t tell you what a relief it’s been.
The other thing that has helped a lot is letting my next novel come through. At one stage it was knocking at the door and I kept thinking “no, it’s just my brain making distractions to annoy me”. I wrote ideas down of course, so I wouldn’t forget ‘em, but I didn’t do anything with them. Finally I sat down and did a bit of planning and world-building – and that seemed to unblock things too.
So, I’ll shut up now and let you get back to the writing. Enjoy!
i didn’t even look at the re-write. i went and started the prequel instead. i’m chip chip chipping away – have about 13,000 words since beginning july – but it’s still slow. got bogged down trying to remember all the lessons i learned, then decided to forget them and tackle them in the 2nd draft (even passive voice!!). things much better since then.
You’re all a bunch of slackers, I’ve written two complete novels, a screenplay and learned how to juggle cats.
Did I just say that out loud?
Sigh, put me down for ‘ditherer’ as well, please. I have dusted off a completely different novel and rewired my brain to work on its plot.
But you know what I like, i like talking to you folks. I like knowing that there are other people out there going through the same struggles as a writer as me. I like this group.
Anyway, time to uncork another big tube of bum glue.
terry