Slowly, a little too slowly for my taste, I'm making progress on the novel. I've noticed that it helps if I wake up in the morning and know what direction my story's going in. Unless I know what scene I'm going to write for the day, it's a little difficult to get started.
Thinking of a scene a day is not hard. Sometimes the scene will run on for longer than the day's word count, which is great, but other times, it might end up shorter and I have to find more words to fill it. But having a general direction helps.
I've also had to start a tiny little list of things I need to write about during the novel. When I was exploring my protagonist's relationship with her mother, for instance, there were so many more things I realized that I needed to discuss. Her childhood, maybe. A little bit about how that relationship came to be what it is, and why it's important to my heroine's journey now.
All these little relationships that I thought were background information are proving instrumental in what the choices of this character are going to be.
I'm only 10,000 words and 13% into the story, but it's farther ahead than I've ever gotten with a character and story. I'm pretty thrilled with the progress.
Don't know if I'll be writing any more today, but I seem to be on-track with my goals.
You wrote: "I've noticed that it helps if I wake up in the morning and know what direction my story's going in. Unless I know what scene I'm going to write for the day, it's a little difficult to get started."
ReplyDeleteErnest Hemingway used to say that he always stopped his day's writing in the middle of a scene, so he'd have a starting point for the next day. I've tried that, but more often than not when I'm on a roll, I forget to stop until I finish the scene or run out of inspiration. So the next day is usually a guessing game as to where to begin.
E.H. also used to say that each day before writing new stuff, he revised what he'd done up to that point. (I assume he meant with heavier attention paid to what he'd written most recently--although he didn't spell that out.) As a rather obsessive-compulsive type, I do this to an extreme. I find it hard to start a new chapter until the last one is as tight as I can make it. Slows me down tremendously. (And knocks me out of NaNoWriMo every time!) But the good news is that when the novel's "first draft" is finally finished, it's actually at least a third or fourth one.
Ah, well, keep on truckin'. You're making good progress!
That's really interesting. I remember that, now that you mention it. I don't like leaving it off mid-scene, but I do like knowing what the next bit is going to be, even if it's in the middle of the action in a completely different part of the novel. I find that I don't write sequentially, and I haven't yet started arranging my stuff into chapters.
ReplyDeleteI really mean it when I say that I'm just producing structure-less crap!