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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
A wreath in remembrance of Peterloo, 16 Aug 1819, laid on 16 Aug 2010 beneath the commemorative plaque in Manchester. I saw this while on the Peterloo tour given by Ed Glinert through New Manchester Walks. Heard a lot of good details, some of which matched what I’d read and learned, some that was new [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
From my research-pile, a snippet of one of the snarky songs of the late Regency period: WHEN full sedition’s stalking through the land, It then behoves each patriotic band Of Noble Minded Yeomen Cavaliers; To sally forth and rush upon the mob, And execute the Magisterial Job Of cutting off the Ragamuffin’s ears. HOW valiantly [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I am still very busy, trying to get to 85,000 words by Nov. 30. It will be a squeaker, but I’m really hoping to get to the end of the story (and hoping that it’s around 85k). Last year, I wrote 60,000 words in November, but that got me only 7/8 through the story. I [...]
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November is National Novel Writing Month! More at nanowrimo.org
