I Wish I Was Writing That

I'm getting cranky, and it's showing. After the break that wasn't, and running at registration pace, I'm beginning to cringe at everyone who stops by, and every ring of my phone. I told a student who came in to argue with me about whether her daughter should take our placement test or not that I didn't have time to argue about it, and that she had to take the test. It was amazing how that stopped further contestation. Must have been the cranky look around my eyes.

***

It's hard going, trying to read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Not only is it hardcore SF, which I don't digest well, but Heinlein decides that subjects are optional in many of his sentences. Yes, I get that he's trying to emulate Russian. It's also making my mind stutter and stop. I haven't returned to the book in three days. That's a bad sign.

***

We get to the heart of the post. I sat down last night and successfully sketched out the entire Widow story line in The Winter the Troll Danced with Old Nick. I wrote the following on Twitter:

*knuckle crack* All right, let's eat some children!

Tiffany Trent weighed in with:

I wish I was writing this novel!

Ironically, when Tiffany was writing her novel throughout this year, I thought the same thing. What she was detailing sort of sounded cool, and I thought that was a ride I wanted to be on as a writer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Deep Writing

I had about 40 minutes to write tonight before I met up with my partner in Victorian squid-dom (a project which has been moved to the new year for a variety of reasons.) I spent most of that reading about the wonders of napkin dispensers. What? I didn't know how they worked. Manuel was helping his abuela.

***

I have sketched out the entire Widow story line in the troll book, and now I'm going back to do Deep Writing. Not that my writing process is unique, but first I sketch, then I comb the scene over and add details, almost overwriting. After that, I do a strong polish, and it's ready to wait until I do the entire book read through.

If a story is really working, it occasionally comes out mostly write the first time. That isn't the troll book at all, although there are scenes that have worked like that.

If I'm lucky, the story I'm working on rolls out like a movie. With the troll story, the process is more like making a movie. I "film" out of order, use a master to edit the story together, and then watch for continuity. I think this conceptualization is working well. It's another reason I decided I'd better learn to become an outliner.

When do you add the detail in? And how do you do it?

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.