Mutters from the depths

[ksmith]

So the Chapter That Wouldn't End is finished for now. 20.5 pages. It was 26 pages--yes, this is the one I shaved over 1500 words from because it was running too long at 25 pages--but I decided that the short sweet ending didn't work after all, so I cut it and the preceding argument and called it the start of the next chapter. So, CTWE ends on a sad note instead of with a fight and a dollop of triumph. Not quite as satisfactory from a Sheer Drama (tm) point of view, but the new arrangement moves the story along a little better because it provides a better opening to the next scene.

Don't mind me--I'm just talking myself down off a ledge here.

I'm guessing that I will have to cut at least 100 pages from the first half of this draft. Possibly closer to 150. I then need to inject more action into the pages that remain. Thoughts of how to do this woke me up at about 430 this morning. No answers, just the realization that the "end" of this book isn't as simple as I first thought it would be. Instead of the last fifth of the book, it needs to comprise about the last third.

You know what's really funny--laugh I thought I'd die--is the fact that the final book still won't deviate all that much from the damned outline. But the front stuff, that I first thought was very important, is turning out to be not quite as vital as I thought. It needs to move a hell of a lot faster, which means I will have to break out Bucky the Chainsaw come second draft time.

To make matters even more fun, I don't feel quite right. Slightly odd throat and ears. Just a tad achy. It could be the weather--we had t-storms here today for crying out loud. I'm just hoping it's not a cold.

In other news, after rhapsodizing about my new guitar only a short while ago...I'm thinking seriously of putting lessons on hold for the next two months. I'm not practicing as I should. It's become one more thing on the To Do List instead of something to enjoy, and since I am at least nominally an adult, I can quit if I want to.

The vision is starting to tunnel is all.

Comments

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Tunnel vision at this stage is good thing, though.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It is, yes. I wish I could put a fewe more things on hold.

I don't think I need a breakthrough at this point, but I'd like one anyway. Or maybe just the reassurance that I'm on the right path, but you don't often get that, do you?

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Only in bits and pieces, in my experience. But those moments when you know you nailed it, even if 'it' is one scene or one exchange or one descriptive sentence, are gold.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I actually had a breakthrough this morning. One of those Gold moments, and it's a big one. There was a reason why the two chapters I had been working on dragged and dragged and dragged. I wasn't sure what would come after them. I knew it was a chase of sorts, but I didn't have the structure and until I had the structure, I had nowhere to go.

So this morning I was working on the new chapter that I built out of the tail of the one that came before. Realized that something had to come before that section because otherwise Jani, my protag, comes off as too reactive rather than proactive. Typed a few sentences...ok, Jani needs to meet with this character first so let's set it up...and then...there it was. Flooped right into my frontal lobes from wherever it had been percolating.

It fits. It highlights issues Jani has with this and other characters. She does something that gets her in even deeper trouble later on. All in all, it just adds a whole lot more Active to this part of the book, and I wish there was some way I could *persuade* this process to occur instead of having to wait until it was good and ready.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!

But you know, I was laughing to myself while reading that, since that is exactly the arduous and frustrating process I go through. Sometimes, if I'm fighting through a scene that won't end, won't go anywhere, and stubbornly refuses to play, I suddenly realize that it's because something else is wrong and I don't know how to fix it yet.

Argh.

But - Go you! Or would that properly be - Go, you!

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I'm never sure if the comma belongs there or not.

The thing is, I started wondering a couple of days ago whether the reason the chapters had stalled was because the book was headed in the wrong direction. This *really* worried me because I don't have time to completely restructure the thing, which is sometimes what that feeling leads to.

But I felt a pretty strong sense of relief when the solution flooped into my head. It will take a lot of working out--I only wrote about 1100 words yesterday instead of my desired 1250 because the conversation in this chapter involved an investigation with Undercurrents (tm), and those can get tricky. But I don't think I need to knock the book down to the footing and start over, which is a huge load off. It will be bad enough having to rewrite the first half.

[hoosier-red.livejournal.com]

Hey, you've gotta do what you've gotta do. Here's hoping Bucky the Chainsaw isn't needed during the editing phase.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Well, he will be. Otherwise I will end up with an 800+ page manuscript, which would give everyone involved heart failure. Including me. I still have the sense of where I've overwritten, thank God. The hard part is keeping Bucky on the shelf until the end is written and I know what the beginning needs to look like, becasue redoing the beginning at this point wuld be a waste of time.

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

I'm muttering "simplify, simplify, simplify" to myself a lot these days - it helps to create the time for writing, and it keeps the writing lean.

IMHO, you've answered your own question - when something you love becomes a checkbox on the to-do list, then it's time to make new arrangements. You've granted yourself this very special two-month window for writing; guitar just might have to step aside.

(Of course, I write that as a near-tone-deaf strummer, who only picked up the guitar to exorcise a tragic teen-aged romance :-) )

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It's a wrestle. This is the second time I will have dropped guitar because of book demands, and after I dropped it the first time I didn't pick it up again for 6-7 years. Same thing happened to golf--yes, I did used to play golf. Anything that required some level of practice/devotion fell by the wayside as the book-of-the-time took over.

I enjoy playing guitar, but I'm not particularly talented...which was, to tell the truth, a little disappointing to discover. But then if I was good at it, it would be harder to excise, and I've needed to simplify for a while now.

(Oh--sorry to hear about the tragic romance. What songs aided in the exorcism?)

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Ah, it wasn't specific songs that exorcised that spirit. It was the act of playing, itself. The object of the tragic romance was an Older Man (I was 19, and he was 24) who was a stunning guitar player. When he broke my heart for the umpteenth time, I decided that I was going to teach *myself* to play.

The technique actually worked, although I think that it was more a passage of time thing than anything else. At least some of the time that I would have spent moping over him, I spent learning chords.

Good luck with your decision making!

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Thanks!