2006-12-28

The Rough Draft, She Is Done!

I be finished with my WIP! Yay! :-)

I just checked and saw that I started this sucker back in mid- to late-September; at that time, I thought it would only take a little over a month to get to this point.

Yeah, right.

So let's see: There are 60,000 words, a change in title (from Cats of Manhattan to Crossed Paths), the beginning of Diego's POV (3rd person), an idea about how the Bastet Society deals with cursed people who've been attacked or killed without having to bring in the cops...and some other ideas I've jotted in my 3-ring binder.

There will be plenty of revisions along the way, but I'm going to put this story away for a few days and concentrate on short stories. I'd really like to get back into that; I'd like to bring some shorter pieces to light, and see if I can sell them.

Well, I've got two to work on, with another still percolating in my brain. I'm sure I'll write about them here at some point (maybe in the next couple of days), but for right now, I'll just say have a happy and safe New Year's...and don't take any rubber chickens! ;-)
Posted by Nancy Beck at 10:30 AM
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Came across a link to your blog on one of the agent/editor/writing sites I was visiting (can't remember which), and I went through a few of your posts. It's always interesting to read a fellow aspiring writers thoughts along the way.

I'm curious how you can jump from one WIP to another. Maybe I'm just obsessing too much over the current one, but I find it hard to think about anything else. The only time I had been planning to put it down was after I finished the first draft. I figured I'd let it sit for some time so the material wouldn't be so fresh in my mind, making it easier to spot problems.

Are you just taking a break from the one you're working on now because you have some other ideas you want to jot down, or have you found some inherent advantage to putting the work down periodically?

Just curious.

Fred

2:31 PM
Nancy Beck said...

Hi, Fred!

I don't know if there's any advantage to putting down your current WIP. It's better, I think, to plow through that first draft.

My problem is due to my Gemini/Cancer nature, in that my wanders if I find what I'm doing uninteresting. I hate saying that about my own stuff, but I guess the other problem with this particiular WIP was that I had some really great ideas that moved the story along...but then I'd come to a point where I'd doubt what I'd written on my index cards. Would my MC really do something like that? Is this the correct reaction for one of the supporting characters? And so on.

(Notice how I tend to get long winded in these entries and comments? ;-) Strangely, the novels I've finished are pretty sparse.)

Also, there've been a number of personal things I've had to attend to the last couple of weeks that kind of gets in the way of things, leaving me depressed, not wanting to write anything.

So...I think what you're doing is the best way to go. Get through the first draft, even if you have to write something like "New character description goes here." Just keep moving ahead.

I'm at the point now where I can leave my WIP aside and can concentrate on short stories. Due to their brevity, I've found writing shorts to be a challenge, but I want to get back to them. I want to write on a day-to-day basis, and I feel this might be a way to force me to keep my writing muscles toned.

Because I really do like to write fiction, don't you? :-) Even if none of these shorts or the novels I've written (unpubbed) never see the publishing light, I need to feed my creative juices, because the day job just ain't cuttin' it. ;-)

Thanks for dropping by! Good luck with your novel!

8:50 AM
Kimber Li said...

Congratulations! It's a major accomplishment to complete a novel. And it's a major learning experience too. I'm going much faster on the subsequent writes and revisions since that First Finish. I can also work on several different novels at once, until the Final Polish when I have to focus completely on the one. I think everyone's different in that respect.

7:01 PM
Nancy Beck said...

Kimber An,

I agree - everyone's different. But I think, too, that once you get into a regular writing mode that doing more than one thing, whether it's novels or short stories (or a combo), becomes that much easier. You've certainly proven that with your comments! :-)

Good luck to you! I hope Star Captain's Daughter finds a home soon!

8:26 AM
Susan Helene Gottfried said...

A little belated, but congrats anyway! I remember the days when I could do a first draft in three months. I miss them, too.

Ah, well. One day.

9:37 AM

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