Editing

            “The best laid plans o’ mice and men ...” That quote was written by Robert Burns, and it was the inspiration for Steinbeck's title for Of Mice and Men.  I really did want to edit my novel in the past week. Unfortunately, I discovered I was a procrastinator. For the first few days, I sat around reading, which was very pleasant. Of course, the interesting books with pretty covers made me feel even shabbier about mine. That tactic didn’t work very well. I worked on the read-through and figured out all of my major problems. After that, I felt like I had accomplished something. The problem was that I didn’t know how to fix my problems. So now I still have a bad beginning and no resolution, and a spotty plot in between, not to mention the adverbs I slathered onto each page because it meant more words.

            The good news is that I’ve started editing. I’m on about page 47 of 110, and right now I’m editing it down, to minimize all of the random fluff. I now feel bad for my alpha reader, because even I was getting very tired of my character’s stupid rants and tangents. I really should’ve edited before sending it to someone. What a concept.

            Right now, it’s 6,000 words less than it was a few days ago, so at least I’m making progress. Kind of. I’ve fallen short of my 2 hours a day for the rest of break goal, though. For my editing plan, I’ve found Veronica Roth’s revision process very helpful. In case you’re interested, the link is here. I read Divergent (the book that was supposed to be my editing reward) and I loved it. I also enjoyed every other book I read while I was happy procrastinating, but I liked Divergent the best. It made me wish that my book was a dystopia like that. You can do a lot when procrastinating.

            I plan to continue editing until I’ve pared it down (and asked fellow writers for help enough to iron out my plot) which will be my second draft. I’ve also decided that writing is much better than editing. Editing is boring and irritating and makes me wish I was writing a murder mystery just so I could kill everyone in my book (fun fact: I wrote a play once that turned out to be a murder mystery only because I hated the main character), but . . . it’s not that bad. It’s only the kind of bad that is equated to hearing that the world is ending, someone breaking up with you, going crazy reading legislative articles, and accidentally burning your house down. Just kidding. I rather enjoy destroying the awful parts of my book in fact, perhaps more than I should. Now the question is ‘how do I fix the others?’ Ugh. That’s a rant for another day.

            Extra: Since I know we all like bloopers, myself included, here are some of my awful metaphors. Again.

            “She looked like a frog that hopped in the irrigation ditches.”

            “Her face was as bitter as tree bark.”

            And my personal favorite, “I walked over to him, caterpillars of fear staring to grow in my stomach.” Really, why did I ever type those words? Caterpillars, of all things? That passage now makes me think of tapeworms. Lovely, isn't it?

            Hoping your first drafts are better than mine,

            Katia, the writer girl

Making Time for Writing: Holiday Edition

Writing during the holidays is much harder than writing at other times, (as the time of this blog post shows) at least for me. Not only have I been busy wrapping presents (and feeling very elvish as I do so), cooking and baking, and spending lots of time with my family, but I have also been taking time to breathe, eat, and yes, even sleep. (In case you're wondering, yes, at my age, sleep is considered a luxury.) Yay! Of course, all of this means less time for my writing (and my novel-editing plan that I was naive enough to believe that I would actually have time to follow) . Therefore, I'm feeling very behind. That, coupled with my inability to finish my stories because the stories aren't good enough, is making me want to write less.

That being said, I still make time to write every day, whether I completely hate the story (which has been happening frequently lately) or not. It's harder, though. Everyone has so many other things that they should, or could, be doing and are expected of them that sometimes it's difficult to force yourself to make the time to write. I had a nice opportunity yesterday to write, have introverted self-time, and showcase my creativity, when I participated in my big family annual talent show. I wrote a poem in about twenty minutes (pausing, of course, for the other acts) and then I read it aloud. It didn't have the quality that I would like for my poems to have, but it was simple and fine enough. At least, it was a creative endeavor.

This week, I'm going to start editing. Really. It's not going to turn into one of those things where I despise it secretly and therefore procrastinate any time I possible can. Oh no, it won't be like that at all. Today, I'm going to finish my read-through and list of problems/solutions, and then starting on Wednesday, I'll start editing, at least according to plan. That will give me a week to edit so that my second draft will be done, at least, if all goes well. If not, the editing will drag on for months. See, aren't I optimistic?

Merry Christmas and have fun writing this week!

Katia,

the writer girl

My Novel Needs Work

                In the past week, I realized I’m awful with criticism. Not exactly a great trait for an aspiring author, is it? (That was rhetorical, by the way.)  I finished the spell-check for my WIP and sent it out to my beta/alpha readers, not expecting that I would get feedback for several weeks, at the earliest. Several days later, I got an email from an alpha reader listing all of the problems that I had with my manuscript. Apparently, everything’s unrealistic and there’s buildup but nothing happens. So, over Christmas break I get to fix those problems. Oh, and there’s no real resolution, so I’ve got to do something about that.

                When I first got that email, I was rather irritated. I looked at my computer for a moment, and internally got angry for a moment (even though the criticisms weren’t that harsh). Then I forced myself to step back. I went back to it about ten minutes later (because that had been all I’d been thinking about since I opened it) and after greatly disliking the random alpha, realized she was right. My manuscript obviously needed help, and she was trying to help me by pointing out all of its problems. She was making it so that I would get rejected less in the future. That doesn’t mean I liked her advice at first, though, but if I only surround myself with glowing reviews that build me up to be the most wonderful writer ever (i.e.: what my family would say, which is disproportionate and wildly biased) then my writing isn’t going to get past the awful first-draft.

                After I had that epiphany, I remembered that I had to start editing, and so I’ve been making a plan for myself. The plan goes like this, ideally:

1.       Read through my whole draft, making notes on a piece of paper with the page numbers

2.       Sigh and continue

3.       Go back once I have uninterrupted time and try to fix the glaring errors

4.       Repeat

5.       Consume great amounts of chocolate while happy, family-related chaos erupts around me (This isn’t ideal, but it will happen. The chocolate part is ideal, anyway. I love my family, and they’re one of the best parts of my life—it’s just that they will be distracting me from the loathed task of editing that I want to finish within that week or so.)

6.       Continue fixing errors, and email alpha for help, assuming that she won’t answer

7.       Drink hot chocolate, finish, and read Divergent to celebrate (I’ve been wanting to read it for months [plus, I obviously like dystopias, considering I’ve written one], and my book club is reading it)

8.       Take a break for a few days, and then try to edit it for the third draft either the remaining days or the next weekend, depending on how quickly I finish

 

That’s what I’ll be doing, on the novel-front. I will also be trying to write at least 1,000 words per day, although the holidays may get in the way of my writing (as I say that, I’m sure they will). I’m going to work on some more short stories and perhaps try to submit them to some teen-authored magazines. I’m also going to try to think of more writing prompts and store them in a safe place, so that when my tank of inspiration is dry (yep, tank, because wells are so last season—either that or I’m very tired), I will have something to recharge it. (What am I talking about? I obviously know nothing about tanks. However, I normally know that they can’t be charged. I see my NaNo-brain is clearly still on the premises. About that . . .)

Happy holidays!

Katia,

the writer girl

Lessons from NaNoWriMo

                I had an actual plan for a blog post, for once, but as usual, I forgot about blogging until the last minute, so another list it will be. Well, and I don’t have anything drastically important to say this week.

                What I learned from NaNoWriMo:

·         Save your document, unless you want to spend precious hours madly retyping from memory (not like I’ve done that, or anything . . . )

·         Sometimes, it’s helpful to know who your main character will be before you start (who’d a thunk? I know, I know—it sounds so crazy, doesn’t it? Well, it’s true. Take my word for it.)

·         Eat lots of chocolate, or drink coffee or tea, if you like that sort of thing

·         Write or Die is immensely helpful, although at times, I cheated, I’ll admit

·         Write. Whenever you have time. I routinely crammed on the weekends, averaging 3.5k for Friday-Sunday, because that was the only time I could write

·         Bask in your family and friends’ amazement, and remember you’re a writer

·         Don’t care if you have no clue where you’re going; somehow, it will be resolved, albeit it may be full of plot holes

·         Forego turkey and relatives until you’ve gotten your daily word-count done (at least, if you’re in the US)

·         You can always catch up. I never got behind, but I saw people who wrote so much in the last few days

·         Always add more conflict. Make up high-stakes scenarios. I put my MC captured, locked in a bathroom with a guy outside who wanted to kill her or something, but you don’t have to go that high. By the way, she got out by crawling out the window.

·         Word-count is important, but autocorrect is not your friend (read: guess who had an awful autocorrect mistake a few days ago? Yep, that’s me!)

·         Have fun. And eat more chocolate. Sleeping’s always an added bonus too

For now, I think that’s about it!

Some of my favorite NaNo quotes from family and friends include:

-“Katia’s writing a novel. (To me) Why are you writing a novel? If I was writing a novel, I’d fall asleep while I was writing it.”

-“Wow, I heard you’re getting published . . . ,”

I’m sorry, but I am so not getting published right now. I’m 14, with relatively little experience, and this is a bad first draft. Nobody would want to buy that, and I haven’t even mentioned to you that I’d want to get published.

-(I was complaining to my grandma about how I was having novel trouble and I didn’t have a plot, really)

My grandma: “Well, that’s okay. You’ll figure it out once you write six or seven!” Meaning, six or seven novels. I have at this point written two. She has never written a novel, as far as I know.

                Nothing much is new, really. I wrote like a fiend this past weekend, and sent my spell-checked first-draft out to my critique partners. It will get torn apart, so I’m going to have to deflate my glowing opinions. Of course, in time it’ll be better, I just know that for a certain amount of time, I will hate the anonymous beta readers. After that, I’ll get over it, though. I’m also going to do the Year of Writing Continuously, which I know little about. The most meager of details have been provided to me, but other than that, I’m not sure. I think it’ll be very fun, though. My personal goal for myself is 1,000 words per day, or 365,000 in the next year, starting from March 1^st.

Katia,

The writer girl

NaNoWriMo Journal: The End (also known as Week 5)

            My first draft is finished at last! I finished NaNoWriMo at 10:00 on Friday after typing the remaining 2,000 words to reach my goal.

            Here are more stats about the novel:

·         3: characters change names   

·         1: completed first draft                                           

The NaNo winner's badge for this year

·         100 (or more): typos that I need to fix     

·         2,013: my daily average 

·         1: average amount of hours I wrote per day 

·         0: all-nighters (I’m not that crazy . . . yet!) 

·         3: critique partners

·         346: average words above the minimum per day

·         22: pages where I’ve corrected spelling errors

·         118: pages total, without chapter breaks

·         20: chapters I hope to have

·         60, 500: words I have right now, before editing it

My plan for editing and revising my novel is to correct all of my spelling errors, send it to my critique partners, and edit it myself over Christmas break, and continue to edit at their suggestions. After that, I may let my eager family members read it. We’ll see how it goes. I think it has a good concept; it just needs a lot of work. That should be fun, I’m sure.

For other, non-novel-related news: I’m currently working on several fiction pieces and some angst-filled poetry (which I do not write, generally), some of which I hope to submit for the Interlochen Fiction contest. I doubt I’ll make it, but I might as well try. I’m also editing my first 500 words for this contest for NaNoWiMo winners, and I’ll submit that tomorrow, so that gives me something to mull over and revise for the next day or two. I also entered the latest Go Teen Writers contest, so I’ll get my results back for that tomorrow.

For me, NaNoWriMo was incredibly awesome and fun, and I’m looking forward to at least trying to make it a tradition. Plus, my family and friends supported me, which made it all better, and helped me write “the novel I want to read,” to take a page from their book. (Wait, that was a bad pun? I . . .  can’t hear you!!)

Have fun writing this week!

Katia,

The writer girl

NaNoWriMo Journal: Week 4

My novel is almost done. I have found out so far that I’m a bit of a procrastinator, but thankfully, I’m generally focused. Of course, having pie, cookies, and brownies on hand as bribes after I finish writing helps a bit. Currently, my novel’s word-count is 57,480. I’m going to make another list, because I like lists, and this way you won’t realize that my spelling has been falling to the wayside since I started NaNoWriMo.

                My novel by the numbers:

·         2: types of grain I talk about excessively. Here you were, thinking that you might not be able to have multiple discussions on the topic of corn, but you can! See, that is the truly amazing thing about writing a story set in, while living in, the Midwest. Yep, your brain is officially blown.

·         2: people die, just because I need more drama

·         1: nice old guy

·         1: young, bitter guy who captures Kera for unknown reasons

·         2,000: NaNoWriMo words destroyed by my forgetting to save and weird software trying to take over my computer (others were destroyed from different stories I forgot to save)

·         2,000: words I had to make up the next day, therefore rewriting the scene from memory. (And it was not pretty!)

·         5,150: words I wrote on Sunday (after that fateful word-sucking "software update" that I'm convinced is trying to hack into my computer)

·         1: cryptic message

·         25 (approximately): awkward metaphors because I’d never written a dystopian (or futuristic) novel before

·         25: days which it’s taken me so far to write the first draft of my novel

·         632: average number of words I write per day, above the NaNo minimum

·         2,299: average word-count per day

·         2,520: words I have left to get to my approximate goal (of 60,000 words)

My plot has been progressing nicely, and my characters have taken direction. I love it when that happens. It’s just so freeing, you know? It makes me feel like I made great characters, which may or may not be true. I’m going to try to write some words this week, but I have a safety net in case I don’t.  I'm looking forward to writing this week, but I'm also glad that I'll get a little time off this week. Then on Friday I will write 2,000 words, or however many are left, and validate my novel, therefore being declared an official winner.

Happy writing!

Katia,

the writer girl

NaNoWriMo Journal: Week 3

            My novel is going very, very well. By that, I mean I’ve written 10,005 words in the past week. Also, there has been just enough conflict, and my characters’ relationships are good. I love my characters, and my plot has been going well enough. I don’t have many awkward, time-filling lulls that I did in my June novel. Might I add that I am 10,000 words ahead of schedule? Yes, NaNo life is very sweet now.

            My novel by the numbers (so far):

·         3: characters whom I absolutely love

·         1: start of a romance

·         2: women who are out to get Kera (my MC)

·         40,154: words so far

·         6: days ahead of schedule

·         2,230: my average  number of words per day so far

·         1: case of extreme estrangement

·         2: scenes where Kera’s in her best friend’s (and crush’s) arms

·         1: death

·         3: comments of stunned disbelief made by my friends

·         18: days of writing happiness

Good luck to everyone who’s doing NaNo, and who will be starting week 3 as of tomorrow. Happy writing, and may the traveling shovel of death enter your novel as needed!

Katia,

The writer girl

NaNoWriMo Journal: Week 2

NaNoWriMo is awesome. It may not be the highest quality writing (far from it), but I’m writing a lot, and a lot more than I would normally. I have so far a word-count of 30,140 words. I wrote 10,000 of these in the past 72-hours, and I had my first 5k day yesterday. My novel has a surprisingly active plot, considering the fact that I don’t plan at all. I have a lot of dialogue, which is nice. My characters are getting along well, and there has been a good amount of action, at least according to me. I’m just so happy while writing it, and it seems like everything’s been working out really well. It’s not so much that the story’s great, although I happen to think I have a great premise; it’s more that I’m just really enjoying the process. Writing a novel is a seriously amazing thing.

                I have told most of my family members that I’m writing a novel, so as to keep me committed to my word-count, et cetera. My aunt, upon hearing about this (and after a few email-exchanges) sent me a package in the mail. It was a big bag filled with chocolate with different types for different levels of motivation, six-word memoirs, and a nice card as well. She rocks. I did thank her for that, by the way.

                In my novel for the past 17,960 words:*

·         My MC tells her friend what she is going to attempt (her journey to find the Exiles)

·         My MC and her best friend survive on little food

·         They (MC and best friend) realize that tunics aren’t made to support hare-brained journeys where you walk for days to try to find your friends who may be dead already

·         Kera (MC) gets a heatstroke

·         They find the community

·         There’s a bit of romance

·         MC realized working in the fields is awful

·         Someone dies

·         People are sad

·         People are happy

·         They leave the Exiled Community, breaking away in the middle of the night

·         People act like scared daredevils

·         Soup spills on someone’s shoes

·         I have more stupid tree metaphors

·         I expand to include stupid sky metaphors and stupid wheat metaphors (See, I’m not just a one-trick horse, everyone! See . . . Or not.)

And more! I’m having an awesome time writing my novel and I hope everyone else is too.

Sincerely,

 

Katia, the writer girl

*What I wrote in the last week.

NaNoWriMo Journal: Week 1

Note: I apologize for any typos that I will make in the next four weeks. I have been writing madly and thus am not entirely accountable for my errors.

                I woke up last Thursday with a story burning on my lips. For months, I had thought about this story, and now it was time to write it down. By “thinking about it for months,” I mean I did think about it for months, but that I had never made a plan or outline. All I had to go from was a list of hastily-scribbled names, a bad chart, lots of strikethroughs, and a vague idea of some of the relationships in my novel. As I avoid outlining whenever possible, this wasn’t the best plan, but it’s how it went. My idea of coming up with a fantastic outline during my Spanish class that afternoon didn’t work out so well. Although I went into it with no plan whatsoever, it’s been going brilliantly so far.

                On Thursday, I wrote about 1300 words, hampered by my bedtime. On Friday, however, it was the weekend, and so my writing took off. I wrote 3,000 words and read an inspiring pep talk. It went much better than I thought. I was picturing myself crying, and spending hours trying to type out those 1,667 words. However, that hasn’t been the case . . . yet. Yesterday I wrote 4,000 words of sheer madness that may or may not have made sense, and today I wrote 3,500. Right now my novel is 20 pages, single-spaced (12,000 words) and positively filled with typos. I love my story and characters, just as I have since June, so I knew that wouldn’t be a problem. A setting took shape quickly, and now I have a plot, unlike in June. Mainly, everyone’s getting mad at the MC and she wants to leave. Still, it’s a conflict. My story has been going very well, and so I’m very happy with that aspect.

                There is, however, one aspect that I didn’t plan. (There are many aspects that I didn’t plan, due to my anti-planning nature. This is simply the one that I found the most confusing and then very amusing.) My dystopia setting is very rigid. I’m having the setting similar to The Giver. For example, everyone wears light-colored tunics, and their food is a grain that the workers in the community grow. They live on the prairie, so that’s not colorful, either, and they don’t have many animals, either. I was having a hard time describing the world, because I enjoy using similes and metaphors, and if you don’t have anything to compare something to, how do you describe it? I was confounded for a few hours, and then I found a solution. My solution was to make comparisons—just only using trees. Therefore, my manuscript is full of sentences like, "My worry dried up like a drop of water on a sun-baked leaf," and "To me, it seemed to be like resin from a tree; sticky at first, but then you grow used to it and forget about it as it seeps more and more onto your hand, leaving you covered with tree sap." Yes, these are lines from my actual manuscript, taken for your amusement. Feel free to use them if you like; I’m sure I’ll edit them out once I get to my second draft. Here’s to another week of literary abandon!

Katia

Why Anyone (and Everyone) Should Do NaNoWriMo

                NaNoWriMo is incredibly hard. You have to juggle work (or school), chores, familial obligations, particularly involving holidays focused on eating pies and roasted birds, and managing your time well enough to spend however long it takes you to write something each day. Additionally, the weather’s not very good, and who loves watching the latest season of Doctor Who? Okay, I’ve never seen it, but that’s not the point. Anyway, however hard it may be, it’s totally worth it.

                Reasons why you should do NaNoWriMo:

1.       It’s a great way to be creative after a long day. Sure, most of what you write isn’t great, but that’s not the point. Anything great you write in November is just a bonus.

2.       You’ll be joining thousands of people who are trying to write in this month.

3.       You can meet lots of new people online, and in real life, which can make you seem less loner-like, if you currently seem like a loner

4.       It’s a fun way to try something new without actually being athletic.

5.       The phrase “I’m writing a novel” will instantly make all of your friends feel like you’re either crazy or insanely impressive; either works, by the way.

6.       You have a way to skip parties you don’t care about and hours of your family talking to you too loudly all at once, by giving them . . . the perfect excuse.

7.       If you win, you get to brag about it for the rest of the year.

8.       People are really nice, and they understand like nobody else how hard it is to cram 10,000 words on the last day, and someone will cheer for you whether or not you win, I hope

9.       Because I will be involved. Also, the idea is really challenging, but it’s about adapting, and making do with imperfection, and having fun. I guarantee that, at least, even if you don’t finish.

10.   Authority has promised free shrimp dinners; what’s not to love? If you are allergic to seafood, then sorry. Never mind.

 

Right now I’m overcome with the awesomeness of NaNo. If you do choose to participate, which you can at any time, make sure you stock up on chocolate. Here’s to a month of writing dangerously!

 

My First Writing Conference

My writing conference on Thursday at the Loft Literary Center was awesome.  It was just so cool for me to meet other writers and talk with them, and to get advice from authors in person. Plus, the building is so cool. All of the walls are exposed brick, the floors are hardwood, there are lots of comfortable chairs, and there’s a lot of writing and reading-related things around the area? What could be better? Anyway, I’ll now stop digressing. You’ve listened to my ramblings long enough.

     I got there very early, so for about an hour I sat in a nearby coffee-shop and typed away, feeling very much like a stereotypical writer. So be it. I checked in once it was time, met some new writer friends, and kept writing. Next, everyone went to a Keynote by John Corey Whaley. He was very funny and inspiring. Some of his main points were about finding ways to love writing struggles and making mistakes, to become obsessed with your stories, and tips about finishing stories differently if you’re stuck.

                Next, I went to a lecture on points of view. I saw one of my friends from school there, and so that was fun. The presenter was very interesting as well. We learned about many different parts of points of view, who narrates it, its pros and cons, and when you use it, generally. For example, I learned that second person is the narration form “you,” and it isn’t generally used for stories or novels overall, as readers become disengaged by it, and find it patronizing or irritating. That session was good overall.

                After that we had lunch. The lunch itself was fine, and I enjoyed getting to talk to my (relatively new) friend. What I found funny was that when I looked around the auditorium where everyone was eating, almost everyone was reading. It was awesome, but rather weird. It was cool to be with many other teens who share the same obsession, I just wasn’t used to it. I come from a school where nobody reads for fun, or if they read, they don’t read as much or with the same passion as I do; in my school, I know of exactly one other person in my class so far who likes writing, the girl who I got to know better at the conference.

                Third, I went to a presentation on structuring novels. It wasn’t so much about structuring novels as it was tips about writing, but I still enjoyed it. Some of the points made involved always needing characters to want something, and not using adverbs. Also, he said that obstacles are necessary for writing fiction, and that the climax needs to be inevitable.

                Afterwards, I went to a talk on flashbacks. We talked about how something always needs to trigger the memory, and then we wrote our own. Mine was all right, but some of the other teens’ were really good; as the author said, some of us should be teaching the class instead. I learned about when to use flashbacks (as little as possible) and to keep it as seamless as possible. Finally, we went to a quick presentation on steps after the writing conference.

                Overall, the conference was awesome. It was my first time actually meeting other writers at length and going to writing classes as a group. By the end of the day, I’d made some new friends who understood my obsession, and learned a lot about writing as well. What I really loved is that they all “got” where I was coming from. I heard many, “In my last novel . . . ,“ or “In the novel I’m writing . . . ,“ and it was fantastic to be part of a community who all wrote and loved it so much- as much as I did. I loved the experience, and would highly recommend it. Oh, did I mention they had food?

              Also: I got published in this month’s edition of TeenInk! It’s only for a letter to the editor, which is quite possibly the lamest thing you could get published for, but it’s a start.

This month is October. As you all know, a very special event is coming in just twelve days, and no, it’s not Halloween. That event is NaNoWriMo, and it is going to be awesome. Therefore, I encourage anyone and everyone to do it. I will be writing about NaNoWriMo on my blog, my experience, and my progress as a whole in November. Look forward to a month of writing dangerously!