An Apology · 3:28am Apr 27th, 2014
I am sorry.
Truly, I am. I recently realized that I have not been fair to you readers. I am writing too slowly, leaving it so that all those nice details that it pays to remember, nobody remembers by the time the next chapter comes out. In order to keep figuring things out, readers almost need to reread the story every time I post a new chapter. That is not fair to any of you, and I apologize. I'm not going to quit—that would be ridiculous—but I am going to have to do something. I owe it to you guys.
I don't want to release sub-par writing, but does that standard shoot me in the foot? I find times when I sit at the keyboard for hours and have only two lines to show for it. This is not progressive writing. I find it hard to produce a 'first draft' simply because I don't want bad writing on the table. I constantly edit and double-check myself, resulting in me trying to find the best way to write a sentence. I have spent up to 30 minutes trying to find the right way to tell the reader what is happening, and what happens is, "Time Passes." And you know? As a discovery writer, it is hard to jump scenes because I don't quite know how the last scene progressed, so I can't say exactly how it affects the next one. I don't want my story to look patchwork.
Maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist, striving for the gold right away. I need to break that, but I don't know how. One sentence goes wrong, and invariably the next few follow suit, and I go back and rewrite them, only to find that doesn't sound right, either, and...well, it's hard to break the cycle.
Chapter twelve is in revision mode. With any luck, it should be posted in the near future. To all of you who are sticking through, thank you for your patience. For those of you dropping out, thank you for your time. To all of you, I'm sorry for lacking.
Take care, and be well.
I am also a discovery writer; it's a tricky thing, made more difficult by the chapter-by-chapter release that this sort of fiction normally suffers. Not only do you have to write the thing -- without knowing all the details -- but you also need each chapter to be worth reading! What we do is actually harder than what a professional author does.
I appreciate that you may not actually be asking for advice, but...
I also suffered from the 'rework problem' -- it's quite a common one. In the end, you have to convince yourself that it is OK to write something that isn't perfect, that first drafts always suck.
You don't need the perfect set of words to understand the scene; if they won't come, just write your best guess and move on. That's an easy thing to say, but there are some exercises that will help with getting over that 'perfection barrier'. I found that doing National (pony) Novel Writing Month helped enormously; you have to write 1600 words a day (that's 3-4 hours for me) -- there is simply no time to do anything else.
Where do you think your problem lies? Is it that you just don't know what is going to happen? I don't think anyone writes 'pure discovery', so I assume you must have some kind of plan -- for me the plan mutates with every chapter I write. What does your process look like?
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Well, you're right in that I wasn't asking for advice. Of course, I'd be a fool to refuse, so thank you.
I think my problem lies, primarily, in being a perfectionist. Second, in being easily distracted, but I'm overcoming that. Third would be Real Life jumping in and screwing with my schedule, but a good lesson in time management should solve that. Recently got an iPod Touch with Pages on it, so now I can squeeze writing time into spare seconds throughout the day, so that may help.
I tried NaNo last year. I failed so hard.
Yes, I have an over-arching plan, so I know several points that the story needs to reach. Getting there is always fun, but there are few points when I don't know what happens next. Every scene I write, I start with where the characters are before the scene starts and where they need to be after. Of course, writing that scene can change things (a tiny alteration in chapter one spawned four additional chapters). On a side note, I don't think I want kids; I'm already dealing with a few ("Damnit, young lady! You get back to the plotline this instant!"). Dialogue has got to be my weakness. I could write for hours describing what's happening, but the moment someone starts speaking I have to stop and consider who's speaking, what and how they would say, the other person's interpretation and why, how they choose to respond... Chapter Eleven, the opening scene with Starwind? Must have spent as much time on that scene alone as the whole rest of the chapter because Starwind never sounded right. Finally got it and I do adore that scene, but gad, that was painful.
Under review, I have found that I have a hard time trimming content vs adding content. The first scene in the upcoming chapter has been lauded as fluffy and insubstantial, so I need to streamline it. I just don't know how. I've built it around the core, and trying to cut bits out feels drastically unfair to the characters. "This is how they'd act," I find myself saying. "What can I trim?" Changing content is easier—throw in a different trigger and watch the scene unfold—though it generally ends up adding to my wordcount. This scene, though...changing it changes the core, and that's a key point in development. Of course, I also know directly how it ties in, so I see all those tantalizing little bits that appear oh-so-fluffy, but I still need to maintain reader interest...
It is difficult, as I say.
Bugger.