Wednesday, still revising

[ksmith]

Nervous. Deadline in 4 weeks. Nervous...but not nervous enough to enact an LJ moratorium. Give it another two weeks or so.

A character who rated only a passing mention in the first draft is now a fully-formed entity who is pivotal to the plot. So pivotal, in fact, that a major plot point no longer makes sense without her. Nice of her to let me know now.

Someday soon, I will rant about my process, which seems so incredibly wasteful that I wonder why I bother. Outline? *phfft* First 200 pages, aka protodraft? *phfft* First frickin' submission draft? *Phfft* No, boys and girls, it isn't until we reach the second submission draft that I get a grasp of the story. Can we say it again? Wasteful. Repeat after me--W-A-S-T-E-F-U-L.

It's depressing, because I can't finesse these stages. I can't not go through them. And what's so damned sadistic about it all is that every time, EVERY BLASTED TIME I go through it, I think "This time, it'll be different. This time, I'll get it right without all this wasted stuff. This Time. I. Will. Write. A. First. Draft. That. Sticks."

In my *&^%$#@ dreams.

Stay by Trespassers William is the latest song to etch tracks in my brain. I've played it almost constantly for two days. Highly appropriate, given the plot of Endgame.

The cover print arrived today from Chris McGrath. The colored area is about 11" by 13", give or take, with a black border. Must get is framed sometime next month.

Comments

[shadowhelm.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the joys of deadlines.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

::ded from the dedlines::

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

And the thing is, I've been through this before, too. And swore it would be DIFFERENT NEXT TIME. Which it obviously isn't.

Why am I still here?

Bye for now--

[shadowhelm.livejournal.com]

Because you procrastinate as much as the rest of us? I got 6000+ words done in two days. I'm sort of trying to get another 5000 in.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of trying to get another 5000 in.

Today?

My record is 34 pages in a day...or was it 37? I don't remember. Too much brain death that day.

Off to work on the laptop because the desktop DSL access is too distracting.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

We don't pick our process. Our process picks us.


It's an interesting question: how much control over how our process works do we have? Do we get used to certain patterns, and are then loathe to change them, or does each individual mind have a process that simply works best with that unique wiring?

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Thank you. For the past four books I've done, there has been the first draft. Then the throw-it-away-and-start-over second draft. I'm midway through #2 right now, and I only just figured out my protagonist's real motivation. Which of course has to be developed in everything I've already rewritten.

It's so frustrating, but it seems to work for me, and I haven't been able to escape.

If I ever meet up with you at a con, maybe we can hang out and throw wadded paper at the writers who produce workable first drafts :-)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

If I could change my process, I would. Sometimes I worry that I've lost whatever story sense I have--why wasn't I able to see at the outline stage, at the rough draft stage, that something wasn't working? That Jani wouldn't do that? That in a Path A-B-C, D has to follow, not xy x 3 to the 6th. That I needed another character at this point that does *this*? That this flashback here slows down the story?

I mean, take your pick.

A book every 6 months that didn't turn into Panic Inc during the last month. Hand off to editor, who finds no major revisions are necessary. That's what I'd like. My odds of getting it? I don't think they calculate odds that small.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

If I ever meet up with you at a con, maybe we can hang out and throw wadded paper at the writers who produce workable first drafts :-)

Chainsaws.