Eric: Unpublished

Day 9: Onward! and stuff

DMI — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:38:00 GMT

This morning, I finished Chapter 3, (Huzzah!), and after yesterday's discussion thought I would share what punctuation I believe it ends on (may have to writing more and look back globally before I can think about the novel's rhythm). So, what punctuation does chapter 3 end on? A semi-colon. Because it rounds out a thought and seems to conclude nicely, but still joins nicely with the start of the next chapter (I think and hope).

Looking ahead to other problematic chapters (I, happily, think I should be able to soar through chapters 4 and 5), I think I may need to almost completely re-do chapters 6 and 7. Again, this is where a lot of material from draft 2 and even the working draft 3 (that didn't work and I only got a third of the way through before the babies were born) is getting scrunched together and rearranged and even new stuff added and... the point is, there's a lot going on and I think it may behoove me to just plain rewrite these chapters. Of course, I'm saying this because I think it'll be easier to just write as though I were first drafting it. I know I said in yesterday's blog that I should always approach my writing with that mindset, that this doesn't have to be perfect, but the question is which will be more effective: trying to use the writing I've already generated, adding and cutting and changing as needed (with a lot of adding) or just start from scratch? Can I even start from scratch? Should I write from scratch then compare and revise? That last option sounds like the most work.

Working on: Finished Chapter 3, Started Chapter 4

Time Spent Writing: About 2 Hours

Writing Music: Star Trek, Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique

Day 8: Breaking Chapters

DMI — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:15:00 GMT

Just about finished chapter 3 and the only thing that's keeping me from moving on is seeing how long the next chapter potentially is. I wonder about chapter balance. Plenty of books I read have short chapters and long chapters. Only when they are in the extreme one way or the other do I really notice at all. I posed the question to facebook and this is the response I got:

Thanks for the responses, y'all! Ultimately, I think I need to focus on the function of the chapters, but out of courtesy to readers make sure that there are page breaks in longer ones (this tends to happen naturally, I've noticed). This is easy and relieving though to a degree ignores the idea of rhythm presented in the last response, although as far as novel-rhythm goes, I may be unready to tackle such an issue. What I can definitely do is make sure that chapters end for a reason and not simply exist as arbitrary sections. The first draft was very guilty of this. I would write about 5000 words, wrap things up nicely and close it out. When I reread the first draft I realized (and I can't remember if my wife helped me realize this or if I just had a conversation with her about it) how crappy that was. That chapters needed to end on notes that kept people wanting to read. This isn't a new idea, having a cliffhanger. I like the way Calvin put it: "punctuate a book." That punctuation doesn't have to be an ellipsis, a question mark, or a exclamation point (though I think those would be the most common). 

The only reason I don't feel I can tackle rhythm is that I'm still parsing out so many other issues, but this is always the writers problem. Even in a novel, everything serves multiple functions. You don't take one sentence to establish mood, another character, another setting then you go into plot. Everything is dynamic and intertwined. I guess I just don't feel like I have a feel for the rhythm yet, especially when I'm consciously working to maintain the same narrative voice (important even for an unseen, omniscient narrator), style and mood. Will have to ponder rhythm more in the future. Just one more thing... THANKS DIS-ROBE-A-TELL-HE!

Working on: Finishing Chapter 3, Starting Chapter 4

Time Spent Writing: about 3 hours

Writing Music: Favorite Piano Music Playlist, Firefly, OCRemix

Day 7: TBAWP

DMI — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:29:00 GMT

That stands for Tampa Bay Area Writing Project. I am and will be for the next four weeks attending their summer institute for writing teachers. I'm expected to create a demonstration lesson to take back to my school (and district) to share with my peers about the teaching of writing. It's from 9 AM to 4 PM. Monday through Thursday. For four weeks.

BUT I'M STILL GOING TO GET THIS NOVEL DONE!

How? You, a blunt but reasonable, though possibly annoying, person might ask.

Well, today I showed up here at USF (where the institute is held (I get grad credit for this! one less class!)) at about 6:30 AM and began to write and got a nice chunk done. I may be able to finish chapter 3 tomorrow! Really! EXCLAMATION POINTS AND FIREWORKS AND GRATUITOUS DISPLAYS OF CAPSLOCK (why isn't "caps lock" in all caps on my keyboard?)!!! (p.s. google interbang)

One way I think I'm growing as a writer already is in versatility of environment, though like so much growth, this is one of necessity. I've been able today, to write in a courtyard and a hallway as the building was not open when I arrived and after that, the room was still not. And I got plenty done. I also have to constantly remind myself, that though I'm working towards perfection and perfunctory publication (perfunctory because it will be so perfect), when I'm too conscious of this, my work gets worse and worse and when I'm writing new material, even if the book as a whole is in its third incarnation, that particular paragraph is in draft 1 and that can be polished later. It's necessary or I'll never move on. And boy do I need to move on from chapter 3.

So, I'll be busy over the next 3 weeks, but as my friend JC pointed out when I was in college and doing the internship at Rowland Publishing (when I started this blog), I get more done the more busy I am. I wrote for 2 + hours this morning and almost an hour during lunch. I feel good. Lots to do, but I feel good. Especially since I volunteered to present first so I'll be presenting on Monday and after that, every afternoon will be all about the writing (as much as I can. Still need to participate and help my peers make their presentations). So....wake up, write, TBAWP in the morning, writing lunch, TBAWP in the afternoon with writing starting next week. Potentially I could get more done than at home and still have the evenings with my wife and babies. I'd say 'let's do this!' but IT'S ALREADY BEEN BEGUN!

Working on: Chapter 3

Time Spent Writing: a little less than 3 hours

Writing Music: Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack, Various OCremix, Classic Western Themes

Day 5: It's Late

DMI — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 01:04:00 GMT

It's always a struggle, man. They say you need routine but that's not all. Writing at the end of the day is no good. They say Hemingway wrote at the beginning of the day. He got up early and wrote until noon. I've heard people say you should write in the morning, as soon as you get up, because your subconscious or unconscious or whatever is still close to the dream-state. That it's like harnessing the power of your dreams. I've never been one to buy into that sort of thing, maybe a little, but not really. I like writing in the morning because I'm refreshed and new. I may be tired, but it's a waking up rather than a winding down. Writing at the end of the day like this, just too damn exhausting, or rather I'm too exhausted already.

It's never a good writing session when your just skipped around wildly, but not doing much in any particular place. At times, I couldn't tell if it was really late or if this book was just broken beyond all repair. I came up with a few good (I think) ideas for how to reconcile the changes I'm making now with later chapters that will need to be doctored to fit accordingly.

The real difficulty at this juncture is trying to figure out what the reader knows. I know so much that won't ever really need to be revealed in this book, or possibly ever, with character backstory and history and what-not. Trying to seperate myself and understand my audience is a unique challenge. So unique that I've created a table in a word doc that lists the chapters then I write in what is revealed to the reader in each chapter and, in the last column, what the reader might infer from this information. It's been useful, though this evening I may have spent too much time staring at that instead of chapter 3.

Anyway, it's late. I look forward to the days when I don't start off each post with how hard writing is. That's getting old. Man, it's so late, I'm not even proofing this. Deal with it, imaginary reader.

Working on: Chapter 3 (and looking ahead to 4, 9 and 10 with some planning and writing)

Time Spent Writing: 1 1/2 hour or something

Writing Music: Battlestar Galactica Season 1 and 2

Day 4: Word Working

DMI — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:07:00 GMT

No, there wasn't a day-three. Not sure yet if I'll be posting everyday that I do writing, but sadly, yesterday was completely consumed by working on our old house and getting ready to be rented. 10+ hours. Good stuff. Going back today for about an hour / hour in a half. But this isn't a blog about not-writing...

Today, I write! And, since someone asked me on facebook and I haven't mentioned it here yet, I am no longer using Storymill, my beloved writing program. Storymill was awesome, potentially is still awesome, however, it is broken and their technical support failed to actually do anything for me. After updating the software, one feature stopped working in a very malicious way that did result in the loss of someof my writing (a very small amount, just what I had done in that particular writing session, but there is nothing more discouraging or frightening to me as a writer than the simple disappearance of my work, having my hard-wrought time amount to nothing). So Storymill is out and a folder with lots of other folders inside of it and each of those full of word documents is serving as the sad, but effective replacement.

I say effective because I'm getting stuff done! Definitely feeling warmed up today and wrote a lot though I noticed that many people might look at what I'm doing as actually containing very little writing. Mostly, at this phase, I'm reading and revising. Though there is definitely some rewriting going, the closest I come to just straight up writing is when I have to craft a new section entirely to tie things together or act as a replacement. Chapter 3 has, in the end, been so difficult because it has been the confluence of several chapters from the first draft being boiled down, distilled and other cooking-related metaphors for reduction and simplification. I know some writers fear the blank page, but I long for the days of the first draft, just writing along, whatever came to mind, free-wheeling, fast-typing with the wind whipping through my care-free knuckle hairs. Whoa, that got weird.

Anyway, it's good news. I could see myself being done with Chapter 3 in another good session (good meaning, nice amount of time, like today).

Working on: Chapter 3

Time Spent Writing: 4+ hours (though with many baby-related interruptions)

Writing Music: Tchaikovsky ("Little Russian," "Winter Dreams," etc.) and Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack Season 1

Day 2: 'Chapter 3, You Old ***' or 'Still Chilly and Sputtering'

DMI — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 03:14:00 GMT

Well, I failed at writing this morning. Not in the getting up and getting start part but in the isolating myself from family part. I've got to have my space to write, especially when it's something like this, where the ideas and inspiration aren't as fresh and you have to force yourself into the chair a bit. Then there was a whole day full of stuff to do, including a grad class from 5:15 to 9:00. But there are always reasons not to write. After I came home and ate dinner, I got right to it and though I may not have gotten all I wanted done, it's something and be able to say I tried and did something is very important at the end of the day.

As for the writing itself, still plugging away at Chapter 3, trying to work through this log jam. This may be the third draft of the book, but chapter 3 has seen more than it's share of renditions and revisions. At this point, I"m taking stuff from all over the second draft and these super messy chapters as part of this internal third draft processing and revising. It feels a lot like sewing as I cut and then try to pull this material back together. I hate to be so vague, but I don't want to go into the details of the book. Suffice it to say, the second draft was a lot longer and several attempts have been made around chapter 3 and the subsequent installments aimed at reducing that word count and delivering the reader to the action and the drama. So far, I've literally (in the novel sense) rearrange solar systems to get this thing to work and now, in many ways, I'm putting a lot of it back, but still trying at all times to shorten the text. Challenge indeed	.	

Working on: Piecing Together Chapter 3

Time Spent Writing: less than 2 hours, divided

Writing Music: Phillip Glass' "Mad Rush" and Zelda Playlist (OCRemix, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jean Carlo Emmanuel Gonzalez Cruz)

Day 1: The Cold Start

DMI — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 12:39:00 GMT

Here it is, the first day of summer. Let me say, I'm already starting off by having failed in my goals a bit. I'm not even talking about the numerous other attempts I've made to get Draft 3 started that go back more than a year at this point. No. That's far too depressing to talk about in a blog about a grand new beginning. I'm just talking about how I wanted to get ready for today and this summer. I wanted to get a little momentum, use the last week of school (at the least), and the weekend before post-planning to start writing, at the very least do some prewriting. I wanted to sit down on my first day of writing and really be able to start cranking out the words, baby! YEAH! (think John Dean, not Austin Powers). Well, "if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak." None of that happened. Heck, I'm nowhere close to "ready." The office in the new house (oh yeah, Mary and I moved, so there's another giant reason why writing hasn't happened) is still in complete shambles, boxes everywhere, things that need assembling and hanging (and in one case re-hanging).

But there are always reasons to not write. Too many actually. I could use the fact that Mary had to interrupt me for help with the babies several times this morning as an excuse, but I always came back to the office (she did a good job of kicking me in the right direction, the wonderful woman). I could have stayed in bed: 'hey! it's vacation time!' or 'I didn't sleep well last night.' Sure, I'd love to spend the morning playing Civilization IV or take the girls for a walk. There are always reasons not to write and that's why this blog is a good one, about hope and victory and tacos and all those good things. I got up. I wrote. Tomorrow I'll do it again.

The goal is simple: finish a complete third draft that is really frakkin' good.

Working on: Chapter 3 / Ton of Prewriting

Time Spent Writing:about 3 1/2 hours

Writing Music: Donkey Kong Country OCRemix

There are Those Who Have the Stars (Audiobook-style Podcast Redux)

DMI — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 01:11:00 GMT

The folks over at Every Day Fiction have done up my story "There are Those Who Have the Stars" audiobook style in their weekly podcast. A big thanks to Folly Blaine for digging this one up and giving it an absolutely amazing reading. Truly, a great performance. I'm honored and very proud.

Give it a listen here.

The Latest Push

DMI — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 15:33:00 GMT

I just scanned through my last real post to this blog and can't belief that so much time has past. The girls were six weeks old and I was trying to keep the book going by writing during my planning period. It was a good idea, worth a try at least. At least I was trying to intend to do something. Of course, that didn't work. I heard of a writer once who had his first book under contract, he only needed to make some changes for it to be published, and one baby derailed him completely - and he was almost there! I have two babies, a full-time job and I'm a graduate student. Anyone could safely assume, and be totally right, that next to nothing has happened in my book for the past six months. Yep, Rosie and Jules are six months old in just a few days, growing so fast you can sit there and just about watch, starting to eat solid foods and working real hard on crawling. It's a blast around here. But I have to write. It nags at me if I don't.

So I have a new plan and I've even waited a few weeks to write about it here so that I know it's working a little bit and worth reporting. Writing during my planning period is a no go. There's too many ways to get distracted by all the work around me that needs doing and kids coming in to see me and appointments and classes that need covering and who knows what else. Even on days where I could block it all out, by the time I really got going, the bell would ring. I realized that larger blocks of time were needed, even if they were fewer, but they had to be on a regular basis, an even schedule because writing has to be part of the routine. A book won't get written in the scraps of time in a busy schedule. So my plan is this: every Sunday morning I will get up at the time when I would normally go to work, head out to a coffee shop and write for a good three hours before I go home and help with the babies and we head off to church. So far, I've done this twice. Additionally, on Saturdays where I don't have classes (like today) or days off (like Monday) I will do the same. Thus, my sleep schedule remains the same (wholly inadequate) and I carve out of my hectic schedule at least three solid, continuous hours of writing a week and sometimes much more.

So far, it's working. I'm doing a reboot on draft 3. I was only what, six? eight? chapter in and I really was having difficulty starting in the middle, where I left off. So far I've gone through chapters 1 and 2, which were pretty easy, and now I'm looking at 3 and maybe 4 at the same time, because the major events of each chapter might be switching places. It looks to be some work but I'm hoping that I can finish both of them up by Late Jan, early Feb. I've always tried to be ambitious with my goal setting, to push myself, but the fact is, trying to write a book with all this other stuff going on is ambitious enough. I'd like to be about halfway through the novel by the time school ends. I will be taking a graduate class this summer, but if I can carry this morning writing through June and July, everyday, I should be able to finally have draft 3 complete by the time next school year starts and the girls are one year old. That only puts me a year behind schedule. Whatever that means.

Until next time, I'm Eric and I'm an unpublished novelist.

Quittin' Time

DMI — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 22:10:00 GMT

My latest story, "Quittin Time" is live today on Every Day Fiction. Give it a read!

Babies and Publications

DMI — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 20:02:00 GMT

I am a father to six week old twins. Rosemary Luna and Juliette Aurora are gorgeous beyond belief, but as you can imagine, I have not done much writing since my last post. When I last posted, I was hoping to knock out another four chapters before the end of the summer, but my wife gave birth only 6 days after that. I'm now halfway through the next chapter, and that's from starting to finally write again in this last week.

Progress is excruciatingly slow, slower than I've ever written before while not being at a complete standstill. The fact is, I don't have time to write at home any more and the only way I can avoid spending the next year (or more) at a complete standstill is to write during my planning period at school. It's taken some getting used to. In the past, I'd devote a whole evening or afternoon to writing (if not a whole day); I would take 30 minutes to an hour to get settled: reading over what I've already read, looking at my notes, my planning, and doing other things to get myself perfectly in the mood and place to write. Then I could write for a very productive and very long time.

Transitioning to writing in a 45-50 minute block every day has been a challenge to say the least. But maybe it's good for me. I'm adapting, becoming more efficient. Everyday it's a bummer to have to stop and go back to teaching, especially after only writing such a small portion, but the fact is I am writing and progress, however small, is being made. My schedule is potentially very conducive to writing at school. With the girls waking up in the wee hours of the morn, I'm already awake and able to get to work very early to get all my planning done. That opens up my lunch and my planning period to free time and allows me to leave right after school to get home. With 4th lunch, 5th creative writing (that's right, I teach High School Creative Writing now), and 6th period planning, I could potentially write for three straight periods if I'm giving my writing students a day to just work on their own stuff. We're building up to that and hopefully it will happen soon. Then there are the weekends, and long weekends like this one, where writing is made possible by the fact that I'm not at a complete stand still.

I guess you could say I'm doing the best I can. I'm not happy with it but it's all I've got. Grad classes will start soon and we'll see how that affects my schedule. On a high note, I have another story, "Quittin' Time," being published at Every Day Fiction on the 7th. Be sure to check that out!

Until next time, I'm Eric and I'm a published short story writer, unpublished novelist, husband, father of two, full-time teacher, and part-time graduate student.

Shapes and Subjects

DMI — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 16:16:00 GMT

Novel update: Finished that section earlier this week. Pseudo-finished it anyway. I'm letting Mary get a first read on it and I'm going to at some point run back through and clean it up a little bit before really calling it the third draft. As I've said on here many times, my approach to this draft is different than others in one huge way: I'm not banging out a chapter at a time and calling it done; I'm working on sections. Overall, I'm not sure if it's the nature of this revision and it's process that requires me to think at once both globally (moving around huge pieces of the novel, changing how events take place, etc.) and on the smallest of scales (is this the right verb? How would this character really say this?), or if it's the fact that I'm caring for my SUPER-PREGNANT wife through the whole thing, but this draft is going very slow. However, I think quality is definitely on the rise, even if my frustration is going with it. As for the section I've sort-of just finished, the goal was to reduce it from 42,750 words in 7 chapters to somewhere in the ballpark of 30,000-35,000 in five chapters. The five chapters was accomplished and a lot of cutting took place, but it still weighed in at 36,400. (It's worth nothing that the changes here also make it possible to delete two chapters later on, so there was significant streamlining.) We'll see if that can come down a bit when I return and give it a once-over. My goal for the rest of the summer, four-five weeks, is to finish one more section of four chapters and get a chance to go through everything up to this point and make sure it's all up to par. When I think back to my original plans of trying to knock out the whole book this summer I think they were pretty naive, but I had no way of knowing how much I'd need to be there for Mary, and I'm happy to. I do know, or think I know, how much work is ahead of me with these babies coming (A LOT) and don't think it'll be pushing too hard to ask myself to get this small amount of writing and revising done before I go back to work. Even with a week or more where I won't even think about writing, I'm sure I'll be able to squeeze a tiny bit of novel-time in during naps and what-not. Finish this next bit will take me up through what was the half-way point in the book, though now it'll be more like the 3/7ths points or something.

I've been reading a lot of newer scifi novels lately. Newer meaning written in the last two decades. Most of the novel-length science fiction I've read in my life has been the classics from "the gold age" of science fiction. I'm a big Heinlein fan. Most of my contemporary scifi reading has come in short form thanks to magazine subscriptions and what's free on the internet. I'm a huge fan of the short story form and would like to write more and work on the many ideas I have for stories, as I feel that genre gives a writer more flexibility to experiment with form and subject. I'm not just talking about the flash fiction I've had some success with, but longer works in the 2,500-10,000 word range. One reason I'm devoting so much time to the novel, though, is that it at least has a possibility of generating some income and possibly at some point (even if it's after sequels and everything) allow me to devote more of my time to writing and free myself to write more short fiction.

But even in reading these new(ish) scifi novels, I've discovered the wealth of diversity in the genre, particularly in style of writing, but in subject matter as well. From a short humorous novel that takes place in present day Key West and Boston to what I'm currently reading which takes place tens of thousands of years in the future and so overflows with aliens that even the humans are alien, having evolved slightly from thousands of years spent on alien worlds. Then there's some of the other books I've been making my way through which take place only several hundred of a thousand years in the future, on or between distant worlds but they too are so different from each other. One, a little like mine in this way only, focused on a small group of people on a single space craft, how they all assembled there and what happened when they did. Another focuses on several characters, their different stories that span the galaxy as an armageddon-like war looms. It's been fun finding the time to read this summer and I hope that doesn't disappear completely when work resumes and have babies to care for. However, there has been at least one lesson I've had to learn from reading these books.

I read now with two agendas. As a reader I want to be entertained and swept away. I want my emotions to be tapped and my imagination expanded. As a writer, I want to observe those successful at the craft. I want to learn. But I've learned to be cautious with the second objective there. Learning and observing is one thing, but making too many comparisons between my own writing and others is dangerous. A lot of what I'm reading our Hugo award winning books crafted by contemporary masters. I don't think there is anything wrong with setting lofty personal goals. I know I'll be a published writer one day, but my goals are to write best-sellers and award winners. But wanting to win awards can't be a first concern when writing my book and I can't be worried about how other author's wrote their books while I'm writing mine. Yes, a lot of scifi is in third person omniscient while mine is third limited. I don't want to imitate their style, their topic or their brand. It's good to see what others in the field are doing, to write in response and with the knowledge of how my book might be perceived by the community at large, but I can't sit around comparing my book and bemoaning it's deficiencies or, for that matter, trying to defend it against others. That is a fruitless exercise.

Until next time, I'm Eric and I'm an unpublished novelist.

Numbers and Words

DMI — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 19:39:00 GMT

I've been dealing with weird issues as I write this draft. First of all, I'm taking a different approach to writing this time around or at least it has a very different feel. The pace seems much slower and I don't think it's just because I haven't been able to find a steady schedule where I write for large blocks of uninterrupted time time day after day. As, essentially, a caregiver for a pregnant woman there are lots of responsibilities floating around. This is okay; I have to get used to it if I'm going to be able to write when there are twin babies around. So far I think I've made that adjustment as good as can be expected. I'm making progress, despite my complete shrugging off of the June 25 deadline. A week later, I'm still a chapter out from that milestone.

But that brings me to the next point. My Dad has often suggested that I take it easy with the writing and make sure I'm getting it right, doing it well (probably because my writing status updates often come in the form of words or chapters written). This go around, rather unintentionally, though most likely because I'm trying to balance so many different concerns as I revise (suggestions from different readers, things I want to do, worries over length, pacing, voice) I'm going much slower. I hope this means I'm getting it right. The first two chapters felt that way; they felt really well put together, almost like they were done.

These next few don't feel that way. They feel bloated and overlong. I'm trying to shorten the novel as whole, but from what my readers have been telling me, the second half of the book is good just the way it is. They say it's an exciting page turner with lots of action and a good pace. They all want me to cut from the beginning. Unfortunately, as I've tried to snip and sew, cut and paste, grabbing the good from seven chapters and shove them into five, the chapters are swelling in word count and I'm afraid will read like a scrap book of poorly thrown together photographs, scenes cut short and smashed together with forced transitions. Yes, overall the book is getting much shorter, but I don't feel like I'm doing any justice to this portion of the novel that was admittedly weak at the outset.

Readers do notice chapter length. One who read my second draft made a note when he felt there was a chapter of "perfect length." How important is it to have balanced chapters of similar length? With the first two fit to that perfect-reader length and the following swollen to nearly twice that at times, I'm really worried about how to proceed and how to fix that. I could make new chapter breaks, maybe adding another chapter, but I wasn't trying to add more. Then again, word count was my measure in terms of length, not chapters. Is it better to have long chapters or short chapters?

All this talk of numbers has me thinking the problem is, for once, the thinking about it and not the actual work being done. My dad talks about quality, but here I am trying to quantify everything. Length is an important consideration, but how high a priority should it be? Right now, I can't help but look at the word count as I write and that's probably not conducive to producing quality material. Maybe that's why I'm going so slow. Trying to balance number of words and the right words. Then again, time is also measured in numbers.

Worst comes to worst, this will just take longer and longer, but it'll still get done. I'm almost "done" with that section. The quotes are because when I'm finished, I'll be going back to see if it actually is working and I'm just being a butt, or if I need to rewrite the whole swath of chapters. Worst things have happened. I want to get right - even if that means stuffing it into a box with a word limit on it.

Until next time, I'm Eric and I'm an unpublished novelist.

Trying to Bust it Open

DMI — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 20:41:00 GMT

Since my last, excited post, that board has changed a bit, a few more arrows and side-notes clarify the plan, but the only real work that's been done is finishing the first chapter of this section (chapter 3). Tomorrow is my last day of work before summer, and it's my hope that things will begin to move quickly. I only have two weeks until my little self-imposed deadline to be halfway through and I'm just not sure that's feasible. What happens after Monday will be a good indicator. Frankly, if I can get a solid third draft of THIS SECTION by then, I'll be happy. One key to getting that done I think is not stopping to take my time or relish in small victories. I "finished" chapter 3 this morning; now sounds like a good time to get to work on four.

Mary is getting very big and the twins will be here soon. More and more, people are telling me that I will be able to write after they come because they spend so much time sleeping and even when they're awake, babies just kinda hang out and look around. But none of them have twins. We'll see. I'm excited and not at all scared, except in the way you always have to be a touch wary of the unknown. I don't know how this will work, how my life will change. For now I plug away.

Until next time, I'm Eric and I'm an unpublished novelist.

Break on Through

DMI — Wed, 30 May 2012 18:23:00 GMT

Reading and revising whole swaths of the novel, especially, I imagine, when the book is so damn big, is proving to be a very unique challenge. After reading and making a detailed plot outline of the next seven chapters, I thought I was stuck. There were so many options to consider. So many things that needed changing alongside twice as many items that could be removed, enlarged, lessened, or switched around. Everything seemed like it was dependent on something else. It started to feel like the end of a very long and nasty Jenga game.

Looking back, I feel more like I was a computer struggling to run too much software all at once. Last night, everything suddenly clicked. It just goes to show you, keep thinking about it, don't fret over walking away and let it stew, come back to it and try to write down ideas. I was in the middle of copying a brainstorm from my white board on to a sheet of paper when everything just started to make sense. It was a solution that both Mary and my brother-in-law Joe had suggested. The problem was, I couldn't just delete one section and change where a character is introduced. It sounded good in theory, to streamline the plot, cut the length of the overall book and drive the action a bit faster, but it just didn't make sense in my head. You see, on the writer's end it can never be as simple as a mere copy/paste. I had to understand what this change meant for every character. I had to not just know what the change was but how and why it was occurring. How could it actually happen this new way? I had to envision it on the paper, hear the characters speaking in my head and see them preforming these actions with total autonomy of purpose and reason. I had to know why everything was happening from the POV of every character to the over-arching theme of the book. And that's just what happened last night. The puzzle pieces made a whole.

Pic of the massive brainstorm/prewriting session:

Lots to do now. Been working on it some to day (got those two more boxes in the upper right checked off). My target for completing this and the next few chapters that will take me to the old half way point of the book is between June 20 and 25th.

Until next time, I'm Eric and I'm an unpublished novelist.