Onward

Write Faster, Write Better, the title promises. It might even be true. Much of the advice makes sense, anyway. Unfortunately I can’t try it out right now; what little writing time I have is dedicated to editing.

Which…phew. This is a hard slog! Which only makes me that much more eager to try the methods outlined in WFWB, because the author (David Fryxell, a familiar name to any who read Writer’s Digest when I had my subscription) promises that if you follow directions, you’ll be doing a lot less editing. (Because you’ll need it less–you’ll know where you’re going and won’t waste any words getting there.)

I’m always up for less editing. I can’t wait to give this a shot. Me, the dyed-in-the-wool, Outlines Are Evil!, Seat-of-my-pants-and-like-it-that-way, wander-till-I-find-an-ending-I-like, writer.

Because, damn it. Editing is a pain. Who wants to do it more than once?

I think I was out of bed for two hours yesterday.  Okay, counting the runs to the bathroom, two and a half.

As a friend put it, my immune system has not been kind to me lately.

Dr’s appointment tomorrow, hopefully I’ll find out why I’m feeling so crummy.  Thought it was a sinus infection, then it seemed to be going away, but my ears are STILL full of something, though my nose is clear.  Except for the swelling inside…

Blargh.  This needs to be done.  I got stuff to do.  There’s no time for the ickys!

Actually, I should say, “Too much laziness, yet not quite enough, will get you.”

Don’t you love that moment, after you clean out your history and your cookies and all, when you discover all the things you no longer remember the password for?

Extreme laziness would spare me this. If every password were the same, it wouldn’t be a problem. But…I like to think I’m brighter than to make my Bissell Company (yeah, had to register for their forums to order a part, how much sense does that make?) password the same as, say, my bank site’s.

But I don’t have a great memory. So, yes, I write these things down. (sometimes I don’t, which creates a whole new side to the problem.) But I’m paranoid enough to write them in a sort of shorthand that should only mean something to me.

Sometimes, when it’s been long enough since I needed the note–I forget what it means too.

blarghle.

I remember when I wrote nearly every day. Not just a few words, either. About 800 words on days I worked, and 1200 or more on days I didn’t. It wasn’t magic that I ended up with several complete novel drafts (I think the count is seven? *counts on fingers* yep, seven.) I worked my butt off to get there. All but one of those novels was written in the last three years, too. (and the one that wasn’t, was completely re-written in that time.) Not to mention a bunch of fanfics, and Flame’s serial.

Part of the problem is that I do have such a backlog. I’m quite well aware I don’t need any more novels right now. I need to polish what I’ve got. But…ahh, there’s always a “but,” isn’t there?

But. I’m not sure what to do. And I can’t stand to keep tinkering aimlessly. I haven’t touched Taro in days, with the excuse that I’ve been sick. Yet I’ve been writing a bit (tiny bit, with lots of crossed-out words and sometimes paragraphs) on Fidelis. The real problem with Taro (beyond the fact that editing really does require more brain than writing, at least for me) is that my scene epiphany seems nearly impossible to apply to Taro.

Here’s how Jack M. Bickham (Scene & Structure) says it’s supposed to go: scene goal > conflict > disaster. Then sequel = emotion > thought > decision > action. (for a more in-depth explanation, I highly recommend the book.) He has all sorts of great ways to mix things up, but that’s the basic idea, and it seems a very good one.

Problem is, I can’t fit most of the scenes in Taro’s book into that pattern, and I’m not sure I want to. On the one side, JMB and Writer’s Digest and other respected writers who recommend JMB’s book, and my own sense of “yeah, that really looks good.” On the other side–a lot of Taro seems damned fine the way it is. I have friends who have read (writing friends, who understand the idea of editing) who don’t think I should change much at all. A bit at the beginning, punch up the climax, that’s it. On this side also are my rebellious muses, who feel they have sweated blood over Taro long enough, it’s time to get it out there and move on.

But I have tried. (see the wibbling here?) And despite what knowledgeable writer friends say, those I’ve sent Taro to have expressed No Interest Whatsoever.

I know Taro can be better. I’m just not sure I’m capable of making it better. Seems like the more I force myself to try, the more time I spend wandering the internet doing useless things.

All right. No more whining. What I need…is a plan. (and then I need to stick to it, which is a whole other kettle of fish…)

*returns from over an hour of internet wandering, talking to roommate, et cetera*

Yeah. I think maybe that plan had better include some enforced internet downtime.

Okay. I need to get Taro divided into scenes and printed out. Once I can get free of needing the computer every ten minutes (last plan was to pull a scene at a time to work on. That was made of epic fail.) I will get farther. I’ll decide what I’m fixing on a scene-by-scene basis and stop worrying about the whole until I’m done.

Then we’ll see, won’t we?