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ksmithMusing a bit.
I had never attempted to work on two projects at the same time before--pause while you multi-taskers out there chortle--but I'm finding that it's been working decently over the past few weeks. Evenings and weekends are spent mostly on the novel, with lunch hours spent on the novelette/novella/wtf ever that is due, weel, this month ideally. Granted, they're both Jani stories, so there is some crossover. But it's early Jani vs later Jani, so there are differences enough to make things...different.
Maybe my brain is finally coming back online after way too long. Maybe the two-projects-at-once kick in the pants is aiding and abetting. I managed 2000+ words on Sunday, helped by the rain and general drear. I had managed that much on a few previous occasions, but this felt better. It did bother me that I wound up rewriting a scene that I thought was good to go. But such is the way of first draft chapters, especially at the start of a book. Character arcs not yet worked out, political ramifications not yet determined, investigation--if there's Jani, there's an investigation--timeline not yet fixed. Sometimes you look at that stuff and wonder who in hell let it loose upon the page.
There are few feelings better than that broadside hit when you realize that the metaphor you came up with for major scenes at the end of the book meshes perfectly with an overarching plotline. When macrostory and microstory collide, and it's fusion, not fission.
No clue whether I've explained that well, but it works for me.
In other news, 500+ words on the novelwtf. Bad news is that is was pretty much cancelled out by the excision of 500+ words that said the same thing but not as well. Crisp conversation is sometimes better than chunks of monologue. Go figure.
I may need to spend a few evenings concentrating on this in order to get it in on time.
I had never attempted to work on two projects at the same time before--pause while you multi-taskers out there chortle--but I'm finding that it's been working decently over the past few weeks. Evenings and weekends are spent mostly on the novel, with lunch hours spent on the novelette/novella/wtf ever that is due, weel, this month ideally. Granted, they're both Jani stories, so there is some crossover. But it's early Jani vs later Jani, so there are differences enough to make things...different.
Maybe my brain is finally coming back online after way too long. Maybe the two-projects-at-once kick in the pants is aiding and abetting. I managed 2000+ words on Sunday, helped by the rain and general drear. I had managed that much on a few previous occasions, but this felt better. It did bother me that I wound up rewriting a scene that I thought was good to go. But such is the way of first draft chapters, especially at the start of a book. Character arcs not yet worked out, political ramifications not yet determined, investigation--if there's Jani, there's an investigation--timeline not yet fixed. Sometimes you look at that stuff and wonder who in hell let it loose upon the page.
There are few feelings better than that broadside hit when you realize that the metaphor you came up with for major scenes at the end of the book meshes perfectly with an overarching plotline. When macrostory and microstory collide, and it's fusion, not fission.
No clue whether I've explained that well, but it works for me.
In other news, 500+ words on the novelwtf. Bad news is that is was pretty much cancelled out by the excision of 500+ words that said the same thing but not as well. Crisp conversation is sometimes better than chunks of monologue. Go figure.
I may need to spend a few evenings concentrating on this in order to get it in on time.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 03:26 pm (UTC)Go, you!
sue
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Date: 2006-05-03 04:48 pm (UTC)Meshing thingies are always fun.
Another bit fell into place last night, while I was treadmilling. This was a mesh between something from all the books, and one POV character's arc within the last book. I did not consciously plan it, but there it was and I was pretty happy about it. It finally defined the POV's growth arc, which is something I'd been struggling with. In my books, POVs either grow or die.
When things start sliding into place, when new working connections reveal themselves--those are the times when I realize that the story is finally working. It's taken root, sent out feelers, rooted itself in the ground. When the story starts to do things on its own--that's exciting.
To use another analogy, it's like building a piece of furniture from a kit. If you have to force connections, if things don't feel or look right, they probably aren't. If you need to consciously keep reminding yourself to pull a character or a plotline back into the story, it doesn't belong there. If you find you've shoved something in backwards, you need to break it down and start over. And if there are pieces left over after you've finished and the overall work is solid and functional, odds are that those pieces were never necessary to begin with.