As I “ETA”ed my earlier post, I wrote about 1700 fresh words today and got the book all patched up. Then this evening I spent two hours editing my first 12 pages. Cleaning up bits of overwraught description & such. Like I had written “bank building.” WTF? “Bank” works.
See, I wrote the first draft from 1999-2000. I wasn’t working, we had a word processor and I wrote. Then we got a computer and I printed everything I’d done and scanned it in and wrote on the computer. Then I joined the “writing classes” at eVil, learned a little from them but learned a lot from my writing buddies and formed TC b/c we are teh awesome. Then I finished the book (called “WS” for blogging purposes), went out to dinner with Hawk and saw a ghost, then the next day I went to the pound and found a wonderful dog with the same name as my narrator.
So it’s been some time since I finished the original. I’ve worked on it off & on since (I queried about five agents and four asked to see the whole ms; of course they all passed b/c I still have it here but now I’m like, “ugh, I wouldn’t even POD this”) but not so much since Zoe was born, but now I’m working hard on it. Every day.
In fact, my arms are sore from where they rest on the the chair I sit in to work. I’m physically exhausted but mentally I could keep working another two hours. Then I’ll get the energy up and my brain goes, “No no no no no.” It’s fine so long as I take breaks, like this one.
Where I’m writing. Again.
4 Comments
January 10, 2007 at 12:08 am
Just a note on your timeline there: the completion of WS pre-dates TC by a good six months.
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2000
Subject: good morning
I was up till 4:30 this morning working on this. See you Snarkers in a few hours.
January 10, 2007 at 11:06 am
Well, yes. It reads like that. I was doing a “like with like” thing there. Like “took class, met Snarkers, made TC with them.” I finished WS in July 2000 and we made TC in January 2001. Good clarification.
January 10, 2007 at 1:02 pm
You’re supposed to be impressed that I still have the email
January 10, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I was extremely impressed, esp since I don’t anymore (old computer and all). I do remember writing it though b/c, as I wrote, it was 4:30 in the morning and I had no one to tell so I had to e-mail. I remember thinking that I would have an inbox full of “Whoo!” when I got up and I did. Snarkers do not disappoint.
Self-NPC on Pt 1 just finished (overall, I only cut about 300 words in the NPC). Starting Self-NPC on Pt 2. Kind of a real shift in narrative voice I need to make. Have to stop thinking in his & start thinking in hers.
Any new rain-slicked wheelbarrows I should know about?
Leave a Reply