Posted in Real Life, writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, real life interruptions, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on July 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »
All I can say is this week so far has been abysmal. Horrible. I want this week to be over. The last two days have been mostly interrupted by plumbers.
I’ve gotten the chance to work on maybe three or four sentences of MAGE STORM.
This too shall pass–eventually.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on July 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I’m gradually getting momentum on the rewrite of MAGE STORM.
Very gradually. I’m still working on Chapter 1. But I am making progress. And I really think that this version is much better. Which, in turn, feeds my desire to work on it. And helps build momentum.
For the moment, I’m copying the old chapter into my new document in a different color. In fact, I’m using Word’s Heading 3, which allows me to track every line in the navigation pane. Then I’m rewriting paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, deleting the old version from the document as I go. This works, for now, because the first few chapters will remain mostly the same–in terms of what happens in them. After about chapter 6, things will begin to diverge from the original plot. I may still refer back to the original in much the same way in some places, but not wholesale.
Meanwhile, I’m continuing with the clean-up of the yard. And the house cleaning. Well, at least it keeps me from sitting in my desk chair all day. And I’m making progress with those, too.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on July 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I have started the rewrite of MAGE STORM.
I like what I’ve got so far much better. However, it seems starting a rewrite is very much like starting a first draft. It just takes a while to build momentum.
I also need to rebuild the habit of writing daily. I didn’t do any yesterday. Well, maybe one sentence. That’s not going to get this done. So I’m going to have to make sure I put in at least some time every day to get back to where I need to be. Just takes discipline–and not allowing procrastination.
Yeah, right.
Posted in Real Life, writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on July 14, 2019| 2 Comments »
I’ve finished the read-through of the old version of MAGE STORM.
It reinforced my belief that I just need to do it over, not try to fix it. Well, mostly. There were a couple of new chapters that I’d written for the previous attempt that can probably stay. It’s a good story, but I can just do a much better job of executing it now. It’ll be like a whole new first draft.
I copied over the (new) Prologue and then revised it some more.
I haven’t yet started on the first chapter, which will be a rewrite. Yesterday, I had to have the refrigerator fixed and that sort of shot my motivation to deal with anything else. Poor Sadie didn’t even get a walk–although she did get to play in the hose until her tongue was hanging out so far I thought she’d trip on it.
I’m just about to get down to writing today–after some more yard clean up and some heavy cleaning in the laundry room–well, one corner of the laundry room. So far, anyway. Oh, and a load of laundry, of course.
But things look like beginning to move again, anyway. Fingers crossed.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, read through, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on July 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I’ve been making excellent progress on the read-through of the old version of MAGE STORM.
So good that I only have three chapters left. So, by this weekend at the latest, I’ll be ready–hopefully–to restart the rewrite.
I have confirmed that yes, as much as I like this story, I am going to need to just start over. I can do much better now.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, inspiration, rewrites, world building, Writer's Block, writing on July 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Inspiration is where you find it–and it can come from anything.
A couple of months back, I posted that one of the things I was doing during this bout of writer’s block to prime the pump was to subscribe to The Great Courses Plus, which has lecture series by experts on all sorts of topics. I probably should mention here that I’ve always been a little bit of a history geek, though of an eclectic selection of eras and locations.
The first one I watched was “The Celtic World”, which was very interesting. It didn’t spark any immediate inspiration, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if something I heard there cropped up in some later story.
After finishing that, I decided to start one on King Arthur (though it was a close thing between that and one on the great mythologies of the world). King Arthur edged the other out mostly because there’ve been a couple of stories simmering on the back burners. One is based on an ancient Welsh story of the greater Arthurian cycle, but not near the core of what we, now, consider to be the central story (much of which probably wasn’t part of the original tale). The other would probably start off of part of the Arthur legend as a springboard, but move on from there.
So far, this is also a very interesting course. But the big inspirational moment so far . . . well, it has more to do with world building than story, per se. Still, it’s something I don’t ever remember hearing anywhere else. And, so far, I haven’t been able to turn up anything on line.
Nevertheless, I like it very much. This was a little rule about travel time in medieval–or medievalesque–settings. And it could apply to others as well, I think. Anyway, it went like this:
If it would take you 23 days to walk to a particular destination, it would take only 6 days if you rode a horse, or only 1 day, if you were able to go by ship.
Now that is a cool little world-building detail. It’ll never be a story in itself, but it doesn’t have to be. And . . . it’s just possible that this might find a place in the new and (hopefully) improved version of MAGE STORM.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on July 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Well, as far as I’ve gotten on my read-through of MAGE STORM, I’ve come to one conclusion.
When I restart, this is going to have to be a scrape-it-down-to-bare-earth-and-start-over rewrite. I’d been trying to do a sort of light version of a rewrite–heavy revisions and insert new material where needed. That’s just not going to work, here.
It’s not that it’s bad as it stands now. It’s just not as good as I’m capable of after writing several more books since the first version of MAGE STORM. Plus some of the changes that need to be made. Well, it’s not going to work that way. I suspect that I already knew that, sort of subconsciously, and that’s why–or at least part of why–I got blocked.
Oh, well. It’s not like I haven’t done just that before.
Posted in Real Life, writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, gardening, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on June 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The thing about having a couple of months off in the summer is that it’s really easy to forget what day it is. Almost forgot to post.
Progress: So far, slow, but steady. I’m reading through the original version of MAGE STORM, making copious notes as I go.
Given other projects in the works–gardening and house cleaning, mostly–I’ve set a very modest goal of a chapter a week. Even at that rate, I should finish the read-through in a couple of weeks. And then we’ll see.
Otherwise, gardening is going pretty well. I’ve almost recovered the lower patio that had gotten so overgrown that only the neighborhood cats used it. Another day or two should see that completed.
This is what it used to look like–and will again–more or less. (For one thing, that bush in the lower right is a lot bigger now.) The table is going to need some repairs, unfortunately.
House cleaning–well, it’s never been my favorite thing to do and, as I started with the most difficult (the kitchen), I’ve still got a ways to go before I can start to feel that motivating sense of accomplishment.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on June 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I apologize for disappearing for–Wow! It’s really been a month, hasn’t it? Well, my only excuse is that reporting that there was nothing to report would be as boring for me to write as it must be for you to read.
Now, however, summer is here. I have a couple of months to work on things. That includes a thorough house cleaning and a good deal of yard work. But it also includes finding a way back into regular writing.
That–well, honestly, all three of those–are going to require the application of some self-discipline. The only one that I’ve made any headway on so far is the yard work, but that has to change. So, I will begin to have something to say again, soon.
Starting, of course with the completion of that re-read of the original version of MAGE STORM, so that I can hopefully find my way into the rewrite with the enthusiasm needed to complete it.
Forward!
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, re-read, revision, rewrites, Writer's Block, writing on May 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
What with one thing and another, I’ve just started my reread of the original version of MAGE STORM.
So far, I’m enjoying it. It’s too early to say if it will re-ignite my enthusiasm for this story, but I’m hopeful. It’s a good story.
Yes, it will need some rewrite/revision. But this time I’m going to focus more on just making the story what it really wants to be rather than trying to impose a whole new structure on it. And I’m not even going to start the rewrite until I’ve finished my read through.
It sounds strange to admit that I didn’t do this when I started the rewrite before. In retrospect, it really is the obvious first step. Yes, of course I know how the story goes. That doesn’t mean I don’t need to go back for some of the nuances.
And nothing says I can’t make a few notes about what needs to be changed when I do start the rewrite again.
Meredith Mansfield, Author 