A couple of weeks ago I received two pages of critique from my mentor/beta reader/friend. He was merciless--I had too many balls in the air--and he was right. So I set about the arduous task of cutting, though eventually I was able to save many passages in the work-in-progress and put them in a different order. I slashed, but I also added new material as I went along. It was a long process, and then I was stumped--where did I go from there?
So I reread the existing draft. I am a pantser, write from the seat of my pants rather than from an outline. So when I come to a halt, it's really a crashing halt. But rereading helps, gives me new ideas--and it did this time. I began to forge ahead, adding new material, incorporating bits of the old.
At first, when I started the rewriting process, I lost 10,000 words--I hate to write to word count, but I confess that sometimes I do because I'm always afraid I'll write short. 75,000 words is a good count for a cozy mystery--65,000 is okay. But I was back down to 40,000--a way to go.
This week I've been on a compulsive writing kick--2,000 words a day for three days. If I can keep that up for two more days, I'll have made up for all the lost text and be well on my way to working this one out. Always fun to see how a mystery will come out. I know the villain, and I have a general idea of what will happen--but it's all that in-between stuff that bothers and worries me. Seriously, that's when three o'clock in the morning thoughts come in.
Today I fully intended to get right to the manuscript--after emails, Facebook, the newspaper, and yoga. But something came up that took priority and I had to deal with right away. Guess what? I still wrote my 2,000 words. Some of the saved passages I thought would speed me along proved not to be as lengthy as I remembered them. New material seemed to flow as though I was not even thinking about it. When writing goes well like that, I really hate to quit--but lunchtime, school's out and other deadlines followed. Tomorrow is another day, and I hope to write all morning--my best time--without interruption. Oh, after emails, Facebook, the newspapr and yoga. One has to have priorities.
Notice anything new on Judy's Stew? I've added the kindlegraph link--you can get autographed e-copies of my books. I've had this for some time but I figured nobody knew about it. All around me, authors were posting this widget on their blogs, but I was like the really slow learner in the class. Finally figured it out, with the help of the Kindlegraph creator, and I couldn't be more proud! Hope some of you will take me up on it. And, yes, it's my signature--just neater than if I'd scrawled it on a book myself.
So I reread the existing draft. I am a pantser, write from the seat of my pants rather than from an outline. So when I come to a halt, it's really a crashing halt. But rereading helps, gives me new ideas--and it did this time. I began to forge ahead, adding new material, incorporating bits of the old.
At first, when I started the rewriting process, I lost 10,000 words--I hate to write to word count, but I confess that sometimes I do because I'm always afraid I'll write short. 75,000 words is a good count for a cozy mystery--65,000 is okay. But I was back down to 40,000--a way to go.
This week I've been on a compulsive writing kick--2,000 words a day for three days. If I can keep that up for two more days, I'll have made up for all the lost text and be well on my way to working this one out. Always fun to see how a mystery will come out. I know the villain, and I have a general idea of what will happen--but it's all that in-between stuff that bothers and worries me. Seriously, that's when three o'clock in the morning thoughts come in.
Today I fully intended to get right to the manuscript--after emails, Facebook, the newspaper, and yoga. But something came up that took priority and I had to deal with right away. Guess what? I still wrote my 2,000 words. Some of the saved passages I thought would speed me along proved not to be as lengthy as I remembered them. New material seemed to flow as though I was not even thinking about it. When writing goes well like that, I really hate to quit--but lunchtime, school's out and other deadlines followed. Tomorrow is another day, and I hope to write all morning--my best time--without interruption. Oh, after emails, Facebook, the newspapr and yoga. One has to have priorities.
Notice anything new on Judy's Stew? I've added the kindlegraph link--you can get autographed e-copies of my books. I've had this for some time but I figured nobody knew about it. All around me, authors were posting this widget on their blogs, but I was like the really slow learner in the class. Finally figured it out, with the help of the Kindlegraph creator, and I couldn't be more proud! Hope some of you will take me up on it. And, yes, it's my signature--just neater than if I'd scrawled it on a book myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment