Unfortunately, I'm not providing motivation today. I'm looking for some myself. With my novel done, I really need to edit. I let it sit for a few days while I worked on finishing up my 50k for Camp (oh, did I mention I won? Still so excited), but now I need to get back in and start editing. I already know that's going to entail some more writing, because I kind of forgot half my characters from the beginning, then realized it and stuck them in again at the end, so there's a big chunk in the middle where they really are in desperate need of character development to get them to the point where they can act the way I made them act at the end and have it make sense after the way they acted in the beginning.
(I'm not entirely sure that last sentence made sense itself. I mean behavior at first is inconsistent with behavior at end, and I need to add character development in the middle so that it flows. There we go.)
Problem is I tend to be rather social when I write. When actually writing (by that I mean putting the words down), I do word wars and sprints and Write or Die by Dr. Wicked to get the words down. But I haven't had very much experience editing, so even though I know exactly what I need to do, I just can't seem to make myself actually DO it.
So, what do you do when you don't want to do something? Any tips are appreciated. :)
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
A novel? Finished? I must be dreaming.
Yes, you read that right. And since it's been almost twenty four hours now, I'm fairly sure that I'm not dreaming. Or at least, if I am, I'm perfectly happy to stay dreaming. Allow me this fantasy! Stop the voices! They're following me!
Ok, perhaps I haven't had quite enough sleep.
But maybe I should back up now. Yesterday I finished my novel - yeah, the one I've been doing for Camp. I can't remember if I already posted this part or not, but I'm, or I was, rebelling for Camp and finishing a novel I'd already started. 30k added, and I'm done. Which is great!
Except that now I have to edit. If you did NaNoWriMo last November and won, you also got a CreateSpace code - it's for 5 free copies of your book. That code expires at the end of June (that's this month, for people like me who lose track of entire months and maybe even years at a time). I would really like to have this novel that I just finished, A) get a title, B) get edited, and C) become physical. A whole five copies! So awesome.
I still am planning on doing a short story to get me over 50k for the month, but I'm going to be editing and rewriting and revising and everything to frantically get this novel ready for my public humiliation. I.e. showing the novel to my family and/maybe friends. Scary.
Oh yeah, and I still need a cover...hmm. Maybe I should look around and see if I can figure out how to use GIMP - or maybe I can edit a picture I have because it might be kind of perfect...we'll see.
Where do you get covers? And how do you go about editing? I'm pretty new to the whole "actually have something to edit" thing. Tips for me? As I go along I'll post what works for me to edit as well under the label Writing Tips.
Hoping I don't go mad from hard core writing...oh wait, I already am.
Ok, perhaps I haven't had quite enough sleep.
But maybe I should back up now. Yesterday I finished my novel - yeah, the one I've been doing for Camp. I can't remember if I already posted this part or not, but I'm, or I was, rebelling for Camp and finishing a novel I'd already started. 30k added, and I'm done. Which is great!
Except that now I have to edit. If you did NaNoWriMo last November and won, you also got a CreateSpace code - it's for 5 free copies of your book. That code expires at the end of June (that's this month, for people like me who lose track of entire months and maybe even years at a time). I would really like to have this novel that I just finished, A) get a title, B) get edited, and C) become physical. A whole five copies! So awesome.
I still am planning on doing a short story to get me over 50k for the month, but I'm going to be editing and rewriting and revising and everything to frantically get this novel ready for my public humiliation. I.e. showing the novel to my family and/maybe friends. Scary.
Oh yeah, and I still need a cover...hmm. Maybe I should look around and see if I can figure out how to use GIMP - or maybe I can edit a picture I have because it might be kind of perfect...we'll see.
Where do you get covers? And how do you go about editing? I'm pretty new to the whole "actually have something to edit" thing. Tips for me? As I go along I'll post what works for me to edit as well under the label Writing Tips.
Hoping I don't go mad from hard core writing...oh wait, I already am.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Camp NaNo?
So, I haven't posted in what seems like a really long time - I don't actually know how long it's been, but in any case, it feels like a lot has happened.
Camp NaNoWriMo started on Friday! June 1st and I stayed up way too late to write. I found out that I didn't actually want to start a new novel, so I'm rebelling this month and finishing a novel that I started last August during Camp last year. Actually, I'd kind of expected to only need another 20k in this novel, but I've written almost 20k and it's nowhere near done. Now I think there might be another 20k left.
My estimates could be very wrong though, since I don't use outlines when I write most of the time, so I don't actually know how the story is going to end. But it's fun in any case.
Did you know that the Arabs attacked the Egyptian empire, and when the Egyptians fought back and held an impenetrable border, they ended their rule themselves? They spent so much manpower and money and whatnot into keeping their borders safe that they didn't have enough people to farm and make food and trade and everything that made them rich to begin with. And then when they didn't have money or food, their border broke and they were overtaken.
I just researched that. Mostly because I've got a fantasy story that has people (vampires that aren't called vampires - they're Ilthibar) from the Egyptian era and I thought that the fall of the Egyptians might help me figure out how the "good guys" are going to defeat the "bad guys". Well, there's actually only one bad guy, but he's so powerful that he almost counts as bad guys. Anyway, I'm not going to say any more because not only do I suck at writing synopsises (synopsys? Synposi? I dunno.), but I also don't know what's going to happen in my novel yet.
So moving on. Camp NaNoWriMo, as I mentioned, has begun. It is day 5 - I haven't written anything today yet, but on the 3rd I wrote 10011 words from the time that I got up until I went to bed...which may have actually been quite late and past midnight. Yesterday I wrote 6k, and today I'm hoping to write 7k, but if I don't get on that, it's not going to happen.
Actually, I almost didn't write 10k. But just as I was about to go to bed (it was like, 3 AM) I realized I only had 600 more words before I'd reach 10k for the day. I couldn't pass that up - I figured it be a lot easier to write 600 right then than to write another 9,400 words on another day. So I got up from my inviting bed and wrote another 600 words, then went to bed happy. :)
Are you doing Camp NaNo, and if so, what has your writing endeavor brought you? Great word count achievements? Accidental history lessons?
10011 in one day
Camp NaNoWriMo started on Friday! June 1st and I stayed up way too late to write. I found out that I didn't actually want to start a new novel, so I'm rebelling this month and finishing a novel that I started last August during Camp last year. Actually, I'd kind of expected to only need another 20k in this novel, but I've written almost 20k and it's nowhere near done. Now I think there might be another 20k left.
My estimates could be very wrong though, since I don't use outlines when I write most of the time, so I don't actually know how the story is going to end. But it's fun in any case.
Did you know that the Arabs attacked the Egyptian empire, and when the Egyptians fought back and held an impenetrable border, they ended their rule themselves? They spent so much manpower and money and whatnot into keeping their borders safe that they didn't have enough people to farm and make food and trade and everything that made them rich to begin with. And then when they didn't have money or food, their border broke and they were overtaken.
I just researched that. Mostly because I've got a fantasy story that has people (vampires that aren't called vampires - they're Ilthibar) from the Egyptian era and I thought that the fall of the Egyptians might help me figure out how the "good guys" are going to defeat the "bad guys". Well, there's actually only one bad guy, but he's so powerful that he almost counts as bad guys. Anyway, I'm not going to say any more because not only do I suck at writing synopsises (synopsys? Synposi? I dunno.), but I also don't know what's going to happen in my novel yet.
So moving on. Camp NaNoWriMo, as I mentioned, has begun. It is day 5 - I haven't written anything today yet, but on the 3rd I wrote 10011 words from the time that I got up until I went to bed...which may have actually been quite late and past midnight. Yesterday I wrote 6k, and today I'm hoping to write 7k, but if I don't get on that, it's not going to happen.
Actually, I almost didn't write 10k. But just as I was about to go to bed (it was like, 3 AM) I realized I only had 600 more words before I'd reach 10k for the day. I couldn't pass that up - I figured it be a lot easier to write 600 right then than to write another 9,400 words on another day. So I got up from my inviting bed and wrote another 600 words, then went to bed happy. :)
Are you doing Camp NaNo, and if so, what has your writing endeavor brought you? Great word count achievements? Accidental history lessons?
10011 in one day
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