To Write or Edit?

So the good news is that on Friday, I completed my contest submission (much thanks to my muse for putting up with depression and PMS to get through it). I sent in the first fifty pages of my novel about two hours shy of the deadline, along with a painstakingly crafted outline—you know how I hate those.

Now the only question is: what do I do now? My editing process brought me through the first five chapters (after completely cutting Chapter Two) out of the eleven I had written. So do I plow onward with the editing, or jump back to Chapter Twelve? It’s a tough decision. I feel as though I’ve been avoiding the next chapter for a while, and not just because of the contest, but because I know it will be difficult to write. A huge part of me just wants to pick up where I left off and finish the book, and finally have a complete first draft.

On the other hand, it makes more sense to keep editing. If I move into the final round of this contest, I’ll need to submit the next fifty pages as well, probably sometime in June. Wouldn’t it be easier just to have it done already, just in case?

Also, I’ve been so focused on the beginning of the book that it might be a little weird to jump ahead. I’ve gotten into a groove with the voice and tone, and to write a part where my characters are at a different stage of their relationship might be a little odd. I might want to get through what I’ve already written and edit it to how I want it to be, then when I start writing again, what needs to happen and how the characters should act will be much clearer.

Plus—bonus! The next chapter I would have to edit includes the scene when my characters (finally) have their first kiss. Which I just love. Side note—is it totally wrong of me to think my characters are adorable? Am I some kind of sick pervert? Or do I just spend WAY too much time with them?

Anyway, I think the answer is clear. It might be a little unconventional, but I think the universe (and muse) is telling me to edit what I already have first. Who knows, it may make writing the second half of the book even easier, because I’ll have a better perspective on what I want the book to be as a whole.

It’s always important to follow your instincts, and just see what you get from it. 

The Power of Focus

It’s hard to say who has a shorter attention span, me or Jordan. It’s actually a big point in the first few chapters of my book how distracted he gets, even though sometimes he’s faking it. So you can imagine that he doesn’t exactly provide full-time inspiration. And me? I take forever to get the creative process going. I have to listen to music, then sit in silence (if there aren’t sirens or blaring music from the church across the street or my neighbors aren’t screaming), and then when I finally get a few sentences down, my stomach starts growling. And since I can’t write and eat, I’ll turn on the TV and then get sucked in to watching it for hours and hours and what was I trying to do in the first place? Writing?!

It’s difficult to stay focused, even when I’m desperate to get something done. Sometimes I wish I could get some sort of tunnel vision where all I can see is my laptop and I can’t hear anything from the outside world.

Focus is different from inspiration. Inspiration is what makes you want to write; it’s where you get your ideas from. Sometimes it can be completely out of your control. Focus is what you need after you already have your inspiration. You need to pull from a lot of things in order to have the right focus—inspiration, yes, but also motivation and will power. It’s easy to get distracted by everyday things, but also by the big picture sort of things. If you start worrying about how you’re going to succeed and get your book published before you’ve even finished the first chapter, then you’ve already lost focus. You don’t want to get too ahead of yourself, get too distracted by life and lose that wonderful inspiration that made you start this to begin with.

Just keep your attention on the task at hand. Find out what works for you. You may have a nice, quiet space where you do your writing. If you write better with a notebook or a computer, don’t try to force yourself to do the opposite. I once thought it might be a good idea to go to the beach with a notebook, but since my muse likes to provide digital inspiration, I couldn’t get out a single word. Find a song or two that gets you in the right mood, or reflects whatever scene you’re working on. Or read a passage of a book that inspires you. But once you’re finished honing all this great inspiration, it’s time to focus on your work, your writing. Don’t let the outside world, or even your own doubts, ruin your concentration.

And if you have to shoo the cat away, then so be it. 

Challenge Results: How I Crashed and Burned

I was going to push this until around midnight, but I since I already feel like going to bed...

I'm not going to make excuses (WORK! IT WAS WORK! Also, it took me all day yesterday to write one scene. Do you know how difficult it is to have your characters flirt while writing a geometric proof?), but obviously, and not surprisingly, I did not even come close to my 20 page goal. The final count: 7 1/2 pages. So not even half.

Which isn't to say that all the effort got me nowhere. I finished two chapter revisions and I have 28 out of the 50 pages I need for the contest entry. I feel good about where these revisions are going and the consistency in the voice. I feel more motivation now than when I was about halfway through the book.

I guess the moral of the story is that it's good to challenge yourself. But also, don't hold yourself to too high of a standard. It's ok once in a while to set a goal that you know you won't reach, just because you'll work so hard and end up getting a lot done in the process. But doing this over and over again can lead to a lot of disappointment, and you may lose your motivation altogether.

So, yes, challenge yourself. But don't be ridiculous.

Challenge Check-In #2

Ok, I just got off a 10 hour shift, so I'll keep this brief. I'm on the verge of passing out. Plus my boyfriend will NOT stop talking to me.

As of tonight, I'm at 4 1/4 pages. I know, it's abysmal. I spent more time yesterday watching YouTube videos on geometric proofs than I did writing. But hey, you gotta do research.

So it's crunch time! I'm hoping to get at least 10 pages done tomorrow, then finish up on Friday night.

Bring on the coffee!

Challenge Check-In #1

So, how am I doing with the challenge? I worked a double today (blech!) so here's a quick summary.

The bad news: I only have two and a half pages done out of twenty.

The good news: I have most of the day tomorrow before work to get some writing done.

The better news: I have ALL of Thursday off.

The worse news: I'm working another double on Wednesday. Gotta love school vacation week!

The worst news: Still no title.

The best news: Since the contest entry I'm working on is double spaced and my challenge is single spaced, by finishing the challenge, I'll have the entry done.

The news of impending doom: I have to do laundry tomorrow.

The Muse-iversary Challenge

I really hope two is my lucky number.

So today marks the two year anniversary of when I first started my work in progress. Two ridiculous, insanity filled years. And I don't have much to show for it besides a whole lot of ideas and several unfinished Word documents. Of course when I started, I didn't realize how much this little idea was going to change everything.

There's also two weeks left until the deadline for the contest I'm hoping to enter. I have eleven pages done out of the fifty I need. Plus I need to outline the entire novel. And come up with a title, which I obviously haven't been able to do for two years.

I've come to realize that while I certainly don't lack passion, I have a problem with motivation. I get distracted easily. I struggle through scenes. But there was a time when it was a lot easier.

I've decided to challenge myself. When I first started this, I busted out a nineteen-page short story in just a week. I haven't had that sort of drive ever since. I’ve worried that I’m chasing a high I’ll never feel again. So I want to recreate it. I want to force myself to write that fast, to turn my passion into motivation, and thus into words on the page. So over the course of the next week, I'm going to keep track of my writing. And I want to beat my first record. By next Friday, I'm hoping to write twenty pages. If I can grasp that drive I once felt, maybe I can hold onto it, then get the fifty pages done, then the entire first draft, and so on...

This may seem like a measly task to some, but on some days I struggle just to get one page done. I think a challenge may be just the sort of kick start I need. Planning and outlining are usually my downfall, but in this case, I'm trying to rekindle what I started two years ago. To be unstoppable.

So I'll be checking in on Monday and Wednesday with my page counts and what has been working or not. Then hopefully, on Friday, I'll be able to say that I was successful.

And happy anniversary to my darling muse. I know you don't care. <3

The First Line

Every story has a beginning. More specifically, every written story has a first line that sends the reader into the world of that story. Like me, you’ve probably read from dozens of books or blogs that state just how important it is to have a well-crafted first line. While this is certainly true, if you focus too much on making it perfect, especially in a first draft, you could be headed for disaster. Or even a broken heart.

I’m going to say something that I didn’t even realize I believed until I started writing this. The first line isn’t as important as people make it out to be. Think about some of your favorite books. Do you remember the first lines off the top of your head? Probably not. But at the same time, if you look back at those books and read the first lines, they’ll most likely resonate with you. So while it isn’t necessarily going to make or break your whole novel, it is important.

The first line is a fickle creature. You need the perfect balance of vagueness and intrigue. You don’t want to give away the whole novel in the first line, but you do want to give away enough to make the reader curious. It can be simple, but not dull. Sometimes a simpler sentence will be more intriguing than a complicated one. And it will be a jumping off point for the next few paragraphs or pages, where you will have more space to expand your ideas and themes.

Once you have that first line written, keep going with your story, but every so often go back and see if the first line is still a good fit. Even if you think it’s perfect, take another look. Because while writing the first line can be difficult, rewriting it can be even harder. If you leave it alone and move on, you become used to it, and thus attached to it. You won’t see any other way of starting your novel besides that one sentence. So when it comes time to really edit, you’ll be incapable of seeing its flaws. Because to you, it’s already perfect.

Let me explain more about the attachment. I’m in an interesting situation because of a contest I’m looking to enter for novels-in-progress. I’m just over halfway through my work-in-progress, but now I’m forced to go back and edit from the beginning in order to submit the first fifty pages. So it’s kind of like draft 1.5. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I feel I have time to make it better from what I already have.

So of course, the first thing I looked at was the first line. When I adapted the first chapter from the short story I wrote, I didn’t change the first line. This could have been a huge mistake, except for the fact that I already wasn’t satisfied with it, just didn’t know how to improve it at the time. I’ve had this experience before, where I became so attached to the first line of a novel I rewrote twice, that when I looked back on it, it didn’t seem to make sense anymore. But at the same time, I felt that I couldn’t change it. How could I possibly change it when this had been the only way to open the story for the three years I had been working on it?

This time around I approached it differently. What I focused more on was what the words were saying, and not how they were saying it. The idea behind it was more important than the phrasing. Here is the original first line as I had written it:

            I started failing geometry right around the time that I stopped liking girls.

I knew that these two details were important to the first line. Creating a sort of parallel between them seemed important to start the story off, because by the end of the chapter, my narrator has a crush on his male math tutor, which is the jumping off point for the entire story. So the context was never a problem, but I was never satisfied with the wording. It seemed a bit clumsy and also didn’t provide a proper insight into his character. Here is how I rewrote it:

            I decided to fail geometry around the same time that I stopped going out with girls.

My first goal was the fix the choppy writing that existed in the first draft, which wasn’t all that difficult. But I tweaked a few things not only to make the voice clearer, but to get the reader to keep going. I wanted to make it clear that his failing is a choice from the very beginning, at the same time that he chooses to stop dating girls. Nothing is accidental for him. And hopefully, the reader will be intrigued enough to keep going, to discover why he has made these choices.

Am I done? Probably not. But like any rewriting, it’s a process. You write, then rewrite, then rewrite again. Then when you finally get published the editors may change it, too. I would advise you to constantly rewrite your first line, even if it’s just a word at a time. Or at least keep in mind that it needs to change. You may not have the right perspective until you finish the entire first draft.