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So today I am getting back into writing the novel, with plans to write five hundred words a day, to stretch my writing muscles so that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) doesn’t send them into shock…So what better time to decide that perhaps today would also be a good day to resurrect my blog?
I’m thinking of it as my Structured Procrastination strategy – see this year’s IgNobel Literature winner….
LITERATURE PRIZE: John Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that’s even more important.
REFERENCE: “How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done,” John Perry, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 23, 1996. Later republished elsewhere under the title “Structured Procrastination.”
The truth is that I really love the process of actually writing…once I am over this initial hump, once the story and the characters come alive. I’m not really sure if the problem is that I’m just holding back, because as enjoyable as it is, there is a lot of hard work in it… Or if the problem is that I’ve not really finished with the thinking time yet.
Although I’m definitely not the kind of writer who has every scene mapped out and outlined before starting – I really would get bored if I knew exactly where I am going, the fun part is when stuff happens that really surprises me – there has to be some elapsed time, when the idea has taken root somewhere in my mind to the extent where I find myself obsessing about it. I’m not quite there yet with the idea for novel 2c, tentatively called Fairy Street. But it is on the way…there is something alive in there, bubbling under, that may erupt.
This is not procrastination. This is limbering up.
Honest.
of the manuscript is well under way – I’m now on Chapter 25. But there is no way I am going to be properly ready for the Debut Dagger. I haven’t even attempted to start on the synopsis yet. And I have to completely rewrite the Prologue bearing in mind everything changed…
I’ve been making notes of names and places, and continuity errors. I’ve spotted a few minor plot problems that need to be fixed, and also seen a couple of loose ends that need to be tied up…or pulled out completely. I always knew the sub plot needed extending, and that there are scenes I’ve skimped on, that need to be written properly.
This time though, I’m not really fixing any of that. I’m just making sure that what is there is solid and readable, and internally consistent.
One slight tragedy that had me pulling my hair out today – I managed to spill a class of water over all my notes. They are now mostly illegible, but I am hoping won’t take too long to reconstruct because I’ve already done the thinking. That’s the theory, anyway.
I am making these notes so I know what to do with the next novel – so I have a record what works and what doesn’t, and what is easy and what is difficult.
It’s all difficult.
Note to future self – Don’t spill water on your notes. Really.
But I am working faster on this than I should be, because I need to get on with writing the synopsis. The Debut Dagger entry date is coming up too fast – and for some reason it is a whole month earlier than I expected.
Note to future self – Check dates and don’t just rely on memory. Really.
At least this one isn’t as bad as dragging Ryan to Ally Pally a week late for the Knitting and Stitching Show. I still pay for that one.
What next?
Once I’m through this quick edit, I will transfer the lot into Scrivener, start on the synopsis, and tagging each section so I can quickly pull out each section in a certain location, or dealing with a certain character.
I have to fix the timeline.
I have to extend the subplot.
There are several scenes I glossed over too quickly in my rush to get the story out – those need to be written properly.
I think there are several places where my narrative strands need to be unwoven, untangled, and then rebraided into a slightly more pleasing structure.
Several key scenes need polishing – the notably the beginning, the ending and the middle. The key turning points.
So what am I waiting for? On with Chapter 25…
Ann
I finished my first draft with over an hour to spare left in 2010.
121 680 words.
37 chapters, plus a prologue and an epilogue.
And in spite of everything I said to myself as I was working, about this being a stand alone psychological thriller, it all ended with room for growth, and the strong possibility of a sequel.
Idaren’t look back on my notebook yet – but I do know it’s not anything like the novel I thought I was writing last year. In all kinds of ways. My initial plan was to aim for 80k words, for one. My main character changed profession. New characters sprouted up all over the place. There were only going to be two deaths – but the body count rose to five…
Now the work of editing begins.
Well, actually, I’ve already been back and adjusted the climax of the story and made it stronger, thanks to some last minute advice from a friend.
So, editing.
There’s a lot to do. First job I think will be to read through and sort out all the continuity stuff – names and places, and research all kinds of factual things I glossed over. The timeline needs some serious attention too.
Fortunately a writing friend alerted me to the Beta version of Scrivener for Windows which is now available. I watched an introductory video and did the tutorial yesterday, and I am now certain that it’s exactly what I need for the editing stage. So over the next couple of weeks I will be going through my first draft and importing each chapter into Scrivener.
And the reason I am not sleeping now now like a sensible person is that my head is already bubbling with ideas for making the sub plot work better – and I got up to make a note of them before they disappeared…
I wish I had some idea about how long it will take me to edit the novel into a reasonable final draft – but I really don’t. There is so much to do, that it is impossible to tell. The story is pretty much all there, and pretty much in the right order, but the sub plot is stunted, the theme is underdeveloped, some of the characters need more attention. Huge chunks need to be shown, rather than told. There’s a lot of explainerfying and spoonfeeding to remove. (I needed it at the time – the reader doesn’t). The language needs to be pruned and polished.
It sounds like a lot of work. But I am really looking forward to it.
Ann
I just woke up from the strangest dream, full of scenes of violence and war, all punctuated by a strange chorus in a curious old shop full of cuckoo clocks and automata.
Very steampunk, I thought, wondering where the images came from.
I can’t work all of it out, but of course, the Christmas Dr Who was a steampunk Christmas Carol, I recently found a wonderful blog that had images of Victorian clockwork toys, I saw a vintage clockwork teddy in a shop in Seaford…oh, and then one of my friends on Facebook recently shared a quotation about the Swiss using years of peace and prosperity to come up with the cuckoo clock….
There’s blood in the cookie too – somehow this connects to the only memory I have of my grandmother – my father’s mother – who looked after me when I was a baby after my mother left. She died when I was very young, but I do remember my Dad taking me to visit her. She was living in my Auntie Minnie’s home, I think, in the flat over the shop. I remember going upstairs, and then sitting with her, while she talked to me about going on holiday to Switzerland and showed me the mechanical toys she had brought back, that seemed absolutely magical to me. They were too precious for me to be allowd to play with them – I can still remember the frustration I felt, not being allowed to touch.
What is amazing, is how my mind put all these things together and told me a story while I was sleeping….a story that has mostly melted away already.
And yet, while I’ve been writing the novel, that’s mostly been how it has worked.
Not at the beginning. The prologue, the part that everyone loves, came like that – out of the blue and whole, straight on to the page. Then I slogged my way through the first eight chapters, after lots of elapsed time, and a lot fo scribbing in my notebook – none of which I have gone back and read…but I do recall it was about a totally different story than the one that turned up.
But since then, I’ve just written it almost automatically…just sat in front of the computer with a few ideas about the general shape of the novel, and some sense of where I was going, and then just carried on until I got there.
The best parts have surprised me, almost as if I haven’t actually consciously made them up. As if I just discovered them.
A couple of days ago, for instance, a character I thought was dead, and who I was secretly thinking I’d have to edit out of the next draft, turned up alive in Eastbourne.
Anyway, I am pretty much on target for finishing the first draft by the end of the year. Probably another two chapters to go, about five thousand words or so. Maybe more. And I’m not quite sure how it’s all going to end, how I’m going to tie up all the loose strands, or even whether when I follow some of them they will lead me into a sequel…
I hope this daydreaming, exploratory method of writing comes through on schedule…it would be really great to finish that draft this year. If it doesn’t work, I have no idea how I am going to get all the bits and pieces straight in my head and then down on to the page…
Oh, and I have to say it again, I am so pleased. Just in the nick of time, I received my very first acceptance for a short story. Ink Beans is going to publish Love Potion Number 347.
Best of all the email said they loved it – now that made me very happy 
And isn’t it just typical that my first story to be accepted is a sweet little romantic tale that hinges on a misunderstood apostrophe and a reference to an unusual biological substance?
Ann
unplugs me from the internet, and fixes up some kind of reward system to feed me chocolate and dripfeed me coffee – the chances of me finishing this first draft by Christmas are non existent.
It is slowly moving along, a few hundred words or so every other day. Maybe it’s just that I am tired after nanowrimo, maybe it’s just that my attention has been distracted by pointlessly worrying about things I have absolutely no influence over…or maybe I just don’t have this last part of the story so clear in my mind yet.
It is still possible that I might finish by the end of the year though.
Which would go some way towards making this year feel like it hadn’t been a complete waste.
So kick me if you see me wasting too much time on Facebook…or putting together potentially useful but also time draining pieces like this About Me page.
Ann
the last section of the novel would be easier to write, that as I knew where I was going, it would all be downhill?
It is all downhill…but not in a good way. I have started fretting about editing, I am afraid that I will have to alter the prologue which will lose what was special about it, and I apparently have no idea who actually did the murder…and why…
I know in myself that actually this is a good thing. I don’t feel it’s that I’ve somehow gone astray – it still feels (surprisingly) that it’s happening the way it should be.
I just wanted it to be easier.
So here I am writing about writing again…instead of actually, you know, writing. Again, though, it seems to be something that works. I seem to benefit from giving myself this little talking to, and looking back at the previous blogs about the novel, and seeing that I have actually felt just as stuck as this before. And that it always seems to happen just before something clicks into place, and I start off again…
Now, let’s just hope I’ve not jinxed myself 
At least I’ve done some of my Christmas cooking today – I have pate and mince pies and chocolate and walnut muffins all made.
Even if I still don’t know who did the dreadful deed…
Ann
to everyone who has helped me keep on track with my novel so far.
And congratulations to all of those who participated in nanowrimo this year, whether or not they hit the target for the word count.
(Anna and Diane who talked me into it in the first place last year…and Dag and Penny, and Sarah, and Sally…and Karl, the completely insane. Sam too, I’ve been watching her wordcount rise. Sarah – whose hero has been unco- operative. Is there anyone I’ve forgotten? Probably. If you’re not living in my novel, you’re a little bit hazy….)
The sense of communal struggle is very much appreciated – the odd kick, a word or two of encouragement, a name for a character. Just putting up with the constant stream of status updates about procrastination strategies, and word counts.
Even the one or two non writing friends who complained, it all helped to keep me going…
The bad news is, it ain’t over yet. But perhaps it will be by Christmas.
The good news – I promise not to sing when it is
Ann
Oh, and current novel wordcount is 96 301 words.
but that does seem to be how it’s turning out…
I really can’t quite believe how well the novel draft is coming along. Considering it had such a slow start – the Prologue was written in something like April of 2009 – the first chapters which I wrote for my Open University assessment piece have been ditched and I started rewriting back in June of this year.
In the big gap in the middle I wrote a few short stories, and occasionally pondered the novel – but I am beginning to suspect that it was playing around at the back of my mind a lot of the time.
I think it needed incubation time.
The story is so much richer and more complex, the characters are more alive, and the hell my poor narrator is descending into is more hellish.
Last week I finally wrote the first draft of the murder scene. This was the image I had in my head since writing the prologue – and much of it was there at the beginning, but some of the details have changed unfathomably. There’s another person present at the scene, for one, a character who seemingly came from nowhere in the middle of nanowrimo, wearing an entirely impractical black and white silk maid’s outfit and carrying a feather duster…
But horrible as this death scene is – it’s not the worst that I have in store for my character. Yesterday I gave her a glimpse of happiness, and today I am starting the process of stripping that all away from her.
It’s a twist on the prisoner’s dilemma. It’s all about having faith and trust tested to the limit. The worst kind of emotional torture, perhaps, because it’s something we do to ourselves. There is no escape, and you can’t just fight or reason your way out of it.
Either you can trust, or you can’t.
I’m beginning to learn to trust, which is interesting really, because I thought it was something I couldn’t do. I gave up writing before, many years ago, because I was too afraid to fail. Now I know that failing is all part of the process, and I don’t mind that any more. It’s just another hint that you need to do something a little differently.
Four years ago, I’d only just started writing again. I wrote a short story, and that first one was shortlisted for the Asham award. I somehow let myself start taking it seriously again and the Open University creative writing courses followed…and I learned a lot from them.
Yet still, I never really imagined I’d have the persistance to get this far. Last year I found an old box filled with my old writing. Some stories I wrote as a teenager. Three or four novels I started and abandoned after only a few thousand words. A few poems…the least said about them, the better. And the diaries…
It really feels possible that by Christmas I will have the first draft of a novel finished. It will probably take me a huge chunk of next year to beat it into some kind of shape.
So, five years…
I’m not bored yet. Although the occasional rejections still have a certain sting…I’m still enjoying every moment.
And that makes me happier than I can possibly express in words.
Ann
so far, which is probably something to celebrate
Even though the parts that are good somehow seem entirely serendipitous, and the parts that are bad are covered in my dirty fingerprints…
I just looked back and realised what a very large task the editing stage is going to be…
Yesterday I finally wrote the long anticipated murder scene, which is supposed to be at the two thirds mark, and I finished on 84 000 words… So as far as writing to the correct length goes, I’m doing okay. I’m also quite pleased with the story and character development, and some of the emotional content.
But, oh dear, it is really very badly written. One or two scenes here and there may work more or less as they are…but huge chunks will need rewriting with that old adage, “Show, don’t tell,” in mind.
There’s an abundance of adjectives and adverbs and flickering log fires…
The first task will be restructuring. At a mininimum the last couple of chapters needs splitting up and interweaving with some of the earlier story threads…
And all the bits I am really hazy about – some details will need researching, and some names will need changing. I swear I will never name a character anything beginning with R ever again.
As for Frankie Howarth, now Quinn… I haven’t been able to take him seriously and even though he’s turned out to be more villainous than I planned, I still have to suppress an inner titter whenever he shows up on the page…
But I’m not even supposed to be thinking about this yet. I still ahve another thirty or forty thousand words to write…. So today I am going to take it easy and just scribble in my notebook a little, abdout what has to happen in the last third of the novel.
It’s still possible that I could be finished with the first draft by Christmas… if I can keep up this kind of pace just a little longer.
And that would make me very happy indeed
Ann
I have done my NaNoWriMo words…averaging 1700 a day or more.
Every single day I’ve written my words in the evening, mostly after eight. Twice I got up and did them after midnight.
And yet, every single day I feel guilty because I haven’t done them earlier in the day.
Insane?
Apparently so.
It is nice to see the progress on these little graphs though
Ann
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