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Tag Archives: writing progress

Award-winning novelist

Again, I have slain the writer’s-block beast and churned out 50,000 words of prose to win National Novel Writing Month. Woot! ’80s dance tunes, playing loud. Last November, I had an outline, semi-solid characters, enough plot and historical details all in a row to mow down the first draft of my Manchester story (which ran [...]

Posted 29 November 2010 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , ,

Ready, go!

National Novel Writing Month starts Monday. In the next 30 days, I’m going to write at least 50,000 words on a new story that I have only the vaguest idea of at the moment. I think it will be contemporary, and I’m going to try to make it sassy if not snarky; I’ve been finding [...]

Posted 31 October 2010 † nickyp § Learning § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , ,

It’s a story

Look! Second-draft is done! No pages remain on the bottom shelf, no scene notecards above them. All pages on the top — done, done, done! I used up all the 500 loose-leaf notebook pages in my pack, so had to switch to the yellow pad for the last two scenes. Structure is solid, promises are [...]

Posted 12 September 2010 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , , , , ,

Making the turn

So yeah, it’s taking longer than I thought, but this story is even better than I thought, so there. I’ll be running silent, running deep until vacation in a couple weeks. I really want to be done with this pass and take a complete break, but as the parents say, “we’ll see.” On scene 50 [...]

Posted 14 July 2010 † nickyp § Learning § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , , , , ,

Off-line, on deadline

So, I’ll be running silent, running deep for a bit (like, 4-5 weeks) as I plow through the big second-draft revise. This pass includes the massive plot revise, character sharpening and combining, story rearranging, scene setting, and fluff cutting. I’m finding this nearly as hard as the scene-for-scene cards I did in April, and for [...]

Posted 11 June 2010 † nickyp § Learning § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , , , , ,

Second draft hurtles into view

So, after a sluggish start and some mild howling about the first draft of my Manchester story, I managed to build a weekend’s-full of space to get down to reorganizing and shaping this behemoth. This is the revised sentence-for-scene outline, all 15.5 pages of it. It took me 17 hours over two days and the [...]

Posted 07 April 2010 † nickyp § Learning § Reading § Thinking § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , , , , , , ,

How the reading is going

So, book club started the year with FIFTH BUSINESS, by Robertson Davies, this first of his Deptford trilogy. I read it in two days, enjoying the flawed narrator and the epistolary structure. This reads like a mature writer’s work, with hard-edged wisdom amid the old-fashioned storytelling. But I have never thought that traits that are [...]

Posted 06 February 2010 † nickyp § Books § Reading § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , ,

First chapter ready for readers

Part of my revision process is to make up sample copy for the back cover of the book; it keeps me on track as I cut and paste as well as showing if I’ve come up with a marketable story. Here is the current version: What’s the harm in a little white lie? Especially when [...]

Posted 12 April 2009 † nickyp § Reading § Writing ‡ Comments (1) ° Also tagged:

History of English, for no credit

The month and next, I’m walking through my current WIP (work-in-progress), scene by scene, and then line by line and, ideally, word by word. The story is set in England in 1815, and I need to rein in my modern-English tendencies. “Felicitations” is OK (first used in 1628), but not “sugarcoat” (1858), though it is [...]

Posted 30 March 2009 † nickyp § Learning § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , ,

Weeks six, seven

Finally got a grip on one of the slipperier characters in the new story, Sam. Kind of important, as he’s the hero/secondary lead. Not as much writing as character-sketching and thinking—15 hours of work, but only 2,100 new words. But the ice is breaking (or is it the logjam?) and I’m going to fly (swim, [...]

Posted 22 February 2009 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: