Digital Arcana

Mostly, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in prose and dialog.  The last few thousand words have been like pulling teeth, and I’m sure I have a few edits to do before it’s anywhere near ready for prime time.  But it is DONE!!!

It’s been an interesting experience for me, since I’ve never set out to write anything longer than a short story, but it has indeed been the best of times and the worst of times.

I can guarantee that, had it not been for the encouragement of NaNoWriMo and my patient and supportive wife, this novel would have been gathering dust at ten thousand words.  As it is, I can guarantee that many of the scenes near the end are going to need a ton of work.  I was lurching for the finish line, throwing words at paper (or its digital equivalent) like a truly desperate man.

However, I have learned a few things during this writing process that will be useful as I work on editing this novel and maybe even beginning another:

1. You have to keep writing.  You’ll write crap, and you’ll hate yourself for it but you have to put it down there and keep moving.  No novel writing exercise ever ends with the first draft and there is always time to go back and fix it.  However, if there’s nothing to fix, then you’ve just blown several hours looking at a blank screen when you could have been writing a big steaming pile of words, gotten past that section and into something good.  Once the entire novel is written, that section can always be wrapped up in its literary diaper and thrown out with the other trash.  Its replacement will be a thousand times easier to write when you can look at the novel as a whole.
2. Deadlines are your friend.  You will hate them.  They will loom at you.  You really can’t do it without them, at least I have found that I can’t.
3. I hate writing dialog.  I can’t stress this enough, so I’m going to say it again:  I HATE writing dialog.  Hate it.  Hate it. Hate it! Setting out to write dialog starts out with forgetting the natural rhythm of every conversation you have ever had and putting to paper the most stilted and uncomfortable conversation anyone has ever seen.  The characters you love so dearly are now gibbering morons.  Whoopee!  However, remembering Lesson 1 above, you soldier through.  You’ll get to know your characters better and they really will start to speak through you… eventually.
4. I love my little laptop.  My Dell Mini running Open Office went above and beyond the call of duty, running smoothly, quietly and without a hint of fuss or slowdown through 50,752 words.  I eventually plugged it into a spare full-sized keyboard and monitor to save both fingers and eyes, but the screen and keyboard were more than adequate for the shorter writing sessions.
5. Being done with a first draft feels GOOD!
6. I’m sick of writing for awhile.  Have a good holiday weekend and keep an eye out for Mad Eyes on your local bookstore shelves… eventually.  ::fingers crossed::

Posted on November 29th, 2008 under Personal • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed