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