237/265 pages
That is where I am leaving The Tale of Hengist and Undine tonight. Over the past year or so I've been making red marks on what I had labeled the penultimate draft of the novel. Over the past few months, I've been taking those marks, making other changes as they come to me, and turning the penultimate draft into the ultimate draft.
The educational takeaway from this is that making changes on paper and then typing those same changes into a Word document is inefficient, maybe. I hadn't really anticipated how many hours of work it was to apply all of my changes even without thinking about them. So I really thought this step would be the easiest one. And maybe it has been the easiest--I don't really remember the previous steps clearly enough to compare them--but it hasn't been as negligible an effort as I had expected.
The practical takeaway from this is that I'm going into NaNoWriMo this year with some work to do on Hengist that I really don't want to put off until December. I was actually in almost the same situation last year. Which invites the question: why didn't I learn not to do this?
Ah well.
So in 2007 I approached NaNoWriMo with a rather casual approach toward plot, theme, etc. The result was, almost inexplicably, a three-year project with the end-goal of getting a decent novel published. So I'm apparently going at it from the same angle this time.
This year's NaNo is called This Silver Mask. I should point out that this is a very working title. I'm not at all certain that there will be a mask of any kind. If no mask develops, then of course I will have to make some changes to the title. But I'm not going to worry about the mask for now. I'm going to see about having a plot.
Good luck to everyone else who's trying this.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Inaugural post
Hello world.
I've thought for a while that, as an aspiring author, I ought to have a blog. I'd like to say that I've been too busy writing to mess around on the internet, but I the truth is, of course, that I've been busy with... other things. Things like working for money, and sleeping, the latter of which I ought to be doing now.
To cut a long story short, I intend to post here semi-regularly with thoughts that are, generally, more interesting than the ones you're reading right now. Come November (so very soon) I will be participating in my fourth consecutive NaNoWriMo, and hope to chronicle that at least intermittently. Before that, though, I am putting the finishing touches on a fantasy novel, The Tale of Hengist and Undine, which I still hold out hope of having in a publishable state by November 1. There are only 95 pages left to edit.
My primary purpose with this post has been to get the most basic stuff written and out of the way, and to crack the empty expanse of my unpopulated blogspace. That accomplished, I'm going to sleep, but I look forward to having more to say soon.
I've thought for a while that, as an aspiring author, I ought to have a blog. I'd like to say that I've been too busy writing to mess around on the internet, but I the truth is, of course, that I've been busy with... other things. Things like working for money, and sleeping, the latter of which I ought to be doing now.
To cut a long story short, I intend to post here semi-regularly with thoughts that are, generally, more interesting than the ones you're reading right now. Come November (so very soon) I will be participating in my fourth consecutive NaNoWriMo, and hope to chronicle that at least intermittently. Before that, though, I am putting the finishing touches on a fantasy novel, The Tale of Hengist and Undine, which I still hold out hope of having in a publishable state by November 1. There are only 95 pages left to edit.
My primary purpose with this post has been to get the most basic stuff written and out of the way, and to crack the empty expanse of my unpopulated blogspace. That accomplished, I'm going to sleep, but I look forward to having more to say soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)