December Goals Wrap Up

• Continue with my writing routine for more than 12 days.

I just squeezed out my 13th day today. I've felt like I've done less this month than last so seeing that I haven't is a relief. I do have to improve by more than one day a month though.

• Continue with revision of Family Trust.

I did, for all 13 of those days and am now into Chapter 5.

• Revise Eve's Vineyard (short story). - Nope.
  

• Identify a new story idea. - Um, I think I had an idea the other day but I didn't write it down, so it's gone now.
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• Complete Think Sideways Lesson 7, Handout 1 for Happiness Matters. - Nope.
  

Books of December, 2009

• Shopaholic & Sister, by Sophie Kinsella *****
• Three To Get Deadly, by Janet Evanovich ***
  

Shopaholic & Sister rejoins Rebecca Brandon (nee Bloomwood) at the tail end of her honeymoon before real life settles back in along with the return of her workaholic husband, a long lost sister and a best friend who's replaced her. Lost and lonely Bex finds her marriage in tatters and goes to extraordinary lengths to fix it. The annoyance of Bex shopping and shopping and shopping and digging her own hole is lifted in this fourth Shopaholic installment to make for a delightful and emotionally involved story.

Three To Get Deadly is the third Stephanie Plum novel that sees Stephanie uncovering a darker side to the local ice cream man. An easy read with all the usual Plum elements.

Kiwi Writers Temporarily Offline

Kiwi Writers is temporarily offline. If you've tried to visit the site in the last week you would have got no where. We're still here! We're just in the midst of damage control and trying to turn an unfortunate incident into an opportunity. We hope to be back in the next few days so that we can start 2010 with the New Year Novella challenge.

Writing Routine - Days 7, 8 & 9

Seven. I pushed on through and finished up at the end of chapter 3. Scene 15 was left to stand almost exactly as it was. I'm hoping that I won't lose steam half way through this coming week like I did last week.

Eight. Scene 15 was allowed to stand with just a few lines cut.

Nine. Scene 16 is done. It's just a short one and the events got to stand but the characters have reacted to it completely differently. I'm finding it really interesting how I can change the impact of the scene and yet still have the same things happen.

From The Archives... Some Fun

They Fight Crime. Nuff said.

The Simpsons and Futurama as Anime.

A free short story of mine Kitty Oswald Twing and the Missing Gargoyles.

Writing Routine - Days 4, 5 & 6

Four. I did the first dramatic scene move by pulling a scene from chapter 5 into chapter 3. It meant I had to fill in my revision spreadsheet with the scenes more than one chapter ahead but I did stop once I found the scene I needed to plug the hole I had. It lets me split a chapter that really didn't hold together well and hopefully provide a smoother transition through this part of the book. I got 1,000 words in on scene 13 too.

Five. I finished up scene 13, though I had a great distraction of Guitar Hero 5 that arrived, and started in on scene 14 that needed a new intro.

Six. Sadly this day falls three days after day five and I still didn't get my ass into gear until the evening. Scene 14 is now written and there's just one scene left in Chapter 3. Progress is smooth, if not steady and I'm still feeling good about the story.

Making Revision Fun

There are plenty of things that make writing a first draft fun. One of those is being able to ignore your inner editor and let yourself suck. But that isn’t the only thing. So why do a lot of us think that because we now have our inner editor crashing the party that we can’t have fun?

More...

New Year Novella

The highs of November have faded, the festive season has taken over so how are you going to get back to writing? This here challenge is a gentle one to get you back into the swing of things in the New Year.

Come and join the 22 Kiwi Writers already signed up to write a 20,000 word novella in January. Or be a rebel and add 20,000 words to an existing novel... like a NaNo Novel perhaps?

Though I still have plenty of revision to go I'm very tempted to write something new and shiny and join in this challenge for the first time ever. I could write 20,000 new words and still progress on my revision right?

Writing Routine - Days 1, 2 & 3

One. Revised the next scene for Family Trust and decided to shift the end of Chapter 2 to right there. The scene was fun to write. Most of it was retained from the previous draft and I was able to keep showing the strength and loyalty in my protagonist. After reading through the first three lessons in How to Revise Your Novel and then reading the demo for Lesson 1 I saw just how beneficial doing the first lesson could be to this revision of Family Trust. Lucky for me my beta readers did the hard bit for me.

Two. I read through the worksheets for HTRYN lesson one and realised that if I spent time completing it all I would really be doing is procrastinating from doing the actual revision. So then wrote the first two sentences of chapter 3. I don't think that really counts as a routine day.

Three. I finished revising the scene started on day 2 and most of it remained unchanged. I kept going through the next scene and rediscovered a redeemable side of one of my supporting characters that I had forgotten about. The next scene doesn't work how it stands so I'm going to need to look through the existing chapter 3 and see where it needs to fit.

From The Archives... The Never Ending Novel

I know The Never Ending Novel as Family Trust right now but it's gone through many, many incarnations. While scouring the archives I found a post from 22 April, 2007. It talks about the perfect idea for NaNoWriMo called Friendship, Sacrifice & Love. Could this really have been The Beginning?

A few days before NaNoWriMo 2007 I offered up a pitch for the already retitled, Freeing the Flame. Almost every single thing in that pitch has changed but a couple things remain like the basic setting, an Aunt and her niece. I offer an example of sub-plots, none of which have made it through the first revision.

I started writing the first draft on November 1st and finished on December 15th with 59,002 words. I let it rest until NaNoEdMo arrived in March and that's when I decided that the story would live. Then on April 2nd the first rewrite began.

I wrote through April... I wrote through May... I wrote through June and won SoCNoC to make solid progress on the revision until... I finished draft 2 on July 18th. The final sentence in this second draft is so dramatically different to the first that it really represents the change that's gone on, not to mention the word count that swelled to 89,687.

I was so very eager about this second draft that I started thinking about revision straight away. As I revised through the structure and into August I began rethinking the title and on August 4th Freeing the Flame was rechristened Rebuilding Retehoro. It takes until September 26th for me to realise the size of this revision after completing the scene review and then I had a lovely little hiatus over the end of 2008 when I got married until I began to... strain the lumps.

The beginning of this year went by in a revision blur until I stopped and took stock mid-March. It wasn't until the end of April that I came upon the realisation that set me on the "right" revision path.

...and then I changed the title, again.

...and then I got my synopsis in place.

...and then I started the third revision.

...and then I finished the third revision at 76,000 words and sent it to beta readers.

...and now I'm two chapters into the fourth revision.

I'm sure this must be what pros refer to as paying your dues.

Remember the Shiny

Every writer knows that feeling when the spark, the star of a shiny new idea is gifted to them for safe keeping. The excitement is palpable and the potential is infinite.

Then you start writing. Then you put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard and a shadow of the shiny new idea appears on the page. You read it again and see nothing of the shiny star it once was. You try and revise the shadow into a fuller form of itself and still the shine lies hidden and forgotten.

I know some people love revision, the mere thought of making the story better is enough to get them going. For me this is dampened a whole lot by the enormous amount of effort and time it's going to take. I need something else, something shiny.

This is one of the first things in Revise Your Novel. Remember the Shiny. Seek out the very first spark of an idea that led to the monstrosity you now have printed out in front of you. Relive the excitement and hold that shining light up high to guide you through the dark caverns of revision.

Incidentally blogs are a great help in rediscovering the early honeymoon stages of writing. I delved into the archives to find my very first post on Family Trust and remembered just what had excited me about the story and kept me going through the past two years.

How To REVISE Your Novel - Course Description

In preparation for the early bird sign ups yesterday Holly has put together the full course description for How To Revise Your Novel. You can now see what you could be learning through 22 weeks of the course and find out how much it'll cost you. From Think Sideways experience I can tell you it will be worth every cent.

The course will open again in January so check it out and tease yourself.

December Goals

• Continue with my writing routine for more than 12 days.
• Continue with revision of Family Trust.
• Revise Eve's Vineyard (short story).
• Identify a new story idea.
• Complete Think Sideways Lesson 7, Handout 1 for Happiness Matters.

With the revision of Family Trust continuing and acknowledging that I've been neglecting my muse I think I need to throw in some variety with Eve's Vineyard and Happiness Matters to keep that writing spark.