Someone remind me next time I'm writing a first draft to outline as I go. No, not outline <>i>ahead (that just makes sure I don't write what I think I will) just write up a chapter-by-chapter blurb. *sigh* I'm up to chapter 30, I believe, out of what is currently 51 chapters. Next stop, novel inventory, writing giant Xs on my shrunken manuscript & putting all the notes I currently have on my manuscript on my iPhone into my printed manuscript.

After that, character jounaling until I figure out how my world actually works.

Then rewriting the end of act one, the opening of act two and the finale.

Then beta call (though 3 people I trust not to totally laugh at the craptasticness have it now). I'm thinking 2-3 months, but we'll see.

Ah, revising. The fun part. o_O

Apparently I have finished a draft of Darlington! I wasn't entirely sure I was going to-- and I'm not thrilled with the ending I wrote-- but I now have the three essentials for revision: a beginning, a middle and an end.

For those who are interested, the stats:

- There are 51 chapters, ranging from 4-14 pages.

- My spreadsheet says I have 424 pages total, though my on-page numbers go up to 417 (rewriting chapter 1 multiple times is mostly the cause of this discrepancy)

- My spreadsheet also tells me that there are 111,135 words in this draft. I am an over-writer, so I knew this would be hefty going in. However, for me, that's light for a first draft, so... yay?

- There are at least three chapters I left intentionally short because I know I will be fixing them in the next draft with more... stuff. Good stuff. Promise. (Yeah, no real words left for description, sorry!)

- There are 4 versions of chapter 1.

- There are 3 versions of chapter 24

- There are 2 versions of chapters 18, 19, 23 & 31

- I still have not written the kissing scene in chapter 43 like I told Jess I would. Oops.

- I began this book on December 9, 2010. That is 418 days from initial idea to end of draft one. If this seems long to you, during that same time I also revised (meaning tore the sh*t out of) ACCURSED. Twice. (See This Post for last year's writing stats.)

And now I must shove all of it into a file and send it to my bestie before she kills me for making her wait for it :)

AND this means that tomorrow I get to work on Nat's story on the bus! Yay!

Writing (drafting) & revising are two totally different things.

Yeah, you'd think I'd have known that before now, since I spent most of last year slashing and hacking at ACCURSED, rewriting scenes, upping character motivations, going through sentence by sentence to try and make every word exactly what I wanted (BTW-- that task? Not really possible & I'm sure I failed it a number of times. But 'letting go' is a post for another time).

So when I finally got back to working on DARLINGTON I thought I'd learned SO much. I thought I was going to just pick it up, run to The End and then BAM! I'd be back in revisions.

Heh. *twitch* Right. Not so much.

See, while revising I can indulge my totally insane detail-oriented self, but when drafting-- even when drafting a story where I know exactly where I want it to go-- I can't do that. Agonizing over each sentence just leaves me with three sentences & a sense of dread at the end of the day.

Yesterday someone linked to this piece on Twitter and this line in particular really resonated with me:

If you edit your thoughts before you get them down on paper - or onto your computer - you'll squeeze the life out of your message. You may even choke it off completely.

I've finally come to admit that I will never be someone who can edit as they go. Now, I don't think the above sentence applies to everyone, since everyone writes differently and I know a lot of great writers who do think before they type.

But I'm not one of them.

My problem getting this draft of DARLINGTON down wasn't that I didn't know where the story was going (mostly, I have for months). My problem wasn't that there wasn't enough action, that I don't know the character motivations well enough, anything else I went to & tried to "figure out." My problem was that I wasn't just letting myself make mistakes. I didn't want to write yet another manuscript that took me nearly a year to revise into submission-shape. But I'd forgotten that before that whole "revising" step came the "get the hell to the end" step.

And to get there, I have to allow myself to make mistakes.

Now, I could get into the myriad of reasons as to why I was holding too tightly to the reins of the story, but that's a long (& kind-of personal) post for another day. Let's just say for now, I've let them go. This means the writing is actually happening. It also means I've forgotten half of what I said & now need to re-read the last six chapters or so to figure out the next step.

Frustrating? Yes. But better than staring at the screen, dragging out one word a minute and feeling totally worthless.

First, I want you all to go here and see the amazing trailer for BORN WICKED, premiered exclusively through Entertainment Weekly. It's pretty much the awesomest thing ever (er, after the book, of course!).

Next I want to talk a little about ACCURSED (& etc.), mainly cause I've still been feeling a little down on myself about not doing enough last year.`

I started ACCURSED at the end of 2009. In my records for December 10, 2009 it's called "Something New." Later I retitled to "Quents" (a level of Curse-working in the book) & then finally changed it to "Accursed". Which means I have worked with Gen & her story (and potential later-story stuff, for now just to give her a place to go when I can't get her voice out of my head) for about two years & one month.

In those 764 days I wrote ~363454 words about Genevieve. (First draft, edits, plotting notes & randomness)

That is approximately 1454 pages.

Or about 476 words per day since she first said "I wish..."

In five revisions, plus random "outside the story" scenes.

So I guess I can cut myself a bit of slack in feeling like I did nothing in 2011, especially considering I...

Wrote nearly 106000 words in/about Darlington.

Did just over 35000 words of critique (quite a bit of it on the book in the above trailer! Eee!)

Added nearly 21000 words to Arion's (The Ties of Blood) world.

Agonized over 14000 words of "pitch material" (i. e. query, synopsis, etc)

Played with nearly 12000 words on the new alt-word futuristic historical mystery (with bonus!magic)

Managed about 4500 words in random pieces.

Found nearly 2200 more words for the Haunted Restaurant Cinderella

And wrote just over 1300 words in the Angel/Immortal piece that's going to be super-difficult for me.

(Also, there was a pitiful 299 words in W&F world, but that story/series is going to have to wait until I know how to fix it.)

So while I didn't get to write as much as I wanted in 2011, apparently I still wrote quite a bit :)

I'm currently working on three projects. Yeah. Three.

It was supposed to be only two-- writing the first draft of DARLINGTON and revising THE TIES OF BLOOD. Totally doable, right?

And then... My lovely brain decided to throw me a curve. See, back in February I got this idea for a new story. I think it was partly dream-inspired but I don't really remember the dream anymore, just waking up with an image in my mind & a couple characters. So as I do when these things happen, I wrote it down. I didn't get any more thoughts on it until June, when the MC's name changed. So I wrote it down, along with the other few notes I came up with at the same time.

Until Thanksgiving. And that was when my new MC, Nat, decided to give me all sorts of things. I was in the back of the minivan with my whole family, on the way home from my dad's cousin's house where we go every other year, and I had no paper (bad writer, no cookie!). But I did have my Reader. Which has a text notes section. So I sat there & tapped at the on-screen keyboard (poorly) for about a page worth of text.

I wrote about 1600 words when I got back that night and I knew I wasn't getting out of that story there. I also realized that, since I've been saying how I'm so-very-not a plotter, guess what? My brain threw a murder mystery at me.

I've always wanted to write a mystery. I'm totally a fantasy girl now, but growing up? Mystery all the way. My favorite Black Stallion book? The Black Stallion Mystery. My favorite Baby-Sitter's Club books were the mystery series. I inhaled Nancy Drew & The Nancy Drew Files. I graduated to Lilian Jackson Braun & Agatha Christie. I still watch mostly cop/detective shows on TV-- Castle & Bones specifically are my favorites, especially since both combine authors & crime-fighting. And now, I have a mystery on the brain! But...

How does one write a mystery???

Yes, ACCURSED is a mystery. But I freely admit that I had no idea it was when I started it, and that it morphs into one throughout the plot-- I had a lot of time to get to know the characters before I figured out whodunit. This new book, which I thought would be another exercise in setting like DARLINGTON (I'm calling it Alt-World Futuristic Historical), is turning into an exercise in plotting instead. Because I have to know who killed Inger to get anywhere past the first couple chapters.

My brain feels very 'splodey thinking about it. But also excited. I'm gleefully planning to read more Agatha Christie than I've read in the last few years, re-watch all my Castle DVDs, and my copy of Sue Grafton's "Writing Mysteries", which is already tabbed-up from revising ACCURSED, is about to get even more post-its.

Of course, I'm also still working on DARLINGTON (all I have is with my CP awaiting her cheer-leading) & THE TIES OF BLOOD, which now has a new first line in A's perspective, since I'm changing his voice to first person, too. I tried this before & it just Was Not Working, but with this new line I've found him again. Yay! But this does mean I'm actively writing three books again.

Honestly, I love this part. One of these projects will pull ahead & take precedence (I assume DARLINGTON, since it's closest to first-draft completion), but until then, it's so fun hopping in & out of these three totally different worlds & playing with so many wonderful characters that I love.

Anybody else playing with multi projects right now? Or writing a mystery?

Through. I know this. But I still hit the midpoint of DARLINGTON and came to a screeching halt.

Technically, I knew what came next-ish. I just had to get there. But did I just write the chapter? No. I puttered around with a few false starts, I asked my crit group, I stared at the last few paragraphs I'd written with my hands in my hair. All the usual things.

And then I went backwards. Instead of jumping straight into chapter 24, I revised chapter 23. Found the problem. Or rather, a problem, as I'm sure there are more. And I went from there. Wrote a couple chapters that meander. Refused to let myself be upset at the meandering, because therein was my problem.

I wasn't letting myself meander.

Like I said in my last post, I am an over-writer. But I'd forgotten just how huge a part of my process that over-writing is. I know it's going to make revision a huge pain, but I have to let my brain process the gap between the big things, and the way I process that is by letting my characters do what I do-- think about things. Talk about things. Take a shower. Have a glass of juice. When I go back to revise it, yes, most of these meandering parts will be taken out.

But I have to have them there in the first place or I can't push through.

This NaNo pep talk from Neil Gaiman is also a huge help. If even Neil Gaiman hits the middle(-ish) of a novel and thinks it all sucks, well, I guess I can keep going, too-- cause the only way out is through.

I'm at another part where I know where I'm going, but not quite how to get there. So I'm meandering. My characters are currently sitting on couches and talking out something three out of five of them already talked out. But we're doing it again. I'm calling this scene "once more with feeling*" and I'll cut it down to just the feelings later, but for now, they're rehashing an issue with the antagonist. And maybe I'll throw in some more angst, cause Princey-boy hasn't been angsty enough lately & he needs shaken up.

But until the shaking-up, they're gonna sit & talk as long as I need them to, to get to where I'm going.

Anyone else mid-point-ing it up? Got any tips for beating the third quarter** freak-outs?

*No singing, though. Sorry Buffy fans.

**Yeah, I write in quarters, not three acts.

So, post-wedding craziness set in, trying to play catch-up in All The Things, the most important being I had an appointment with a hand specialist on Tuesday. Apparently I have tendonitis!

Yes, that deserves an exclamation point, cause not knowing what it is has been Super Annoying & Frustrating. But now it seems to be tendonitis (which apparently can cause carpel tunnel/carpel tunnel symptoms? Just learned that one), and I've been given a cortisone shot to see if that helps & we'll be treating from there.

I'm optimistic. There's a chance the shot could just fix it (not a huge chance, but still!), and the doctor gave me some stretches to do & I'm planning on returning to my Wii Fit regimen to help strengthen my arms in general-- my arms are pitiful. Like, I couldn't push myself up off the floor the other day (Dane knocked me on my butt while I was petting her). So I decided that just won't do & can't wait to get to work on making myself better.

In writing news, I'm back to working on Darlington. Finally kicked past the mid-point where I'd been totally stalled out for months. Realized a few things I thought I already knew about myself & my process, but apparently forgot:

1) I cannot plot. Well, I can, it just doesn't bode well for me actually getting any writing done. I just keep plotting & doing character research & thinking about what should happen next instead of getting to what happens next. (Which, um, is kind-of the point.)

2) I over-write. I am a total over-writer. I will write random scenes with people eating breakfast & talking, scenesI know I will have to cut later, but I cannot make myself skip them or-- you guessed it-- I stall out. I have to think through things as the story evolves, and the best way to do that, IMO, is in character. Speaking of characters...

3) When in doubt, ask the character. I've done this for years but for some reason thought if I was a "better" writer (or something), I wouldn't need to do it. Um, no. Best way to figure out why someone's doing something is to let them ramble, even if it's an imaginary person.

4) I need music to write. I keep trying to write without sound, and then wondering why my attention is wandering everywhere but the story. Duh. Put on the playlist & just effing write! (And no, the Castle DVDs are not to be used for drafting, only for revision! *smacks own hands*)

What about you? Anything you always have to re-learn about your process?

For the last ten months or so I've been trying something different. When my wrists started to go all wonky, I decided to make "better" use of my time by plotting. I figured out a couple of my WIPs that are in first draft stage (Darlington & the Haunted Cinderella, if you're curious), reading books about plotting and beats and boxes, and when XY and Z should happen. And it worked-- I know exactly where these stories are headed. So while I was working on revision after revision of ACCURSED I knew I could go back to Darlington and know where to go next. It would be easy to jump back in, right?

Um, wrong. Cause I still haven't quite learned that I'm not a plotter.

Part of the problem I'm having now is fear. I know that. Revising ACCURSED, while having that whole scary "querying" aspect at the end of it, was safe. I knew Gen, Wynne, that cast, the situations. I was just making it the best it could be.

But Darlington? Jumping back into that, I can still totally screw it up. It's not done, I just know stuff that happens. And the big twists? Yeah, I still don't quite know how those happen. So not only am I staring at an unknown factor with bits of the ending, I'm also paralyzed that I'm going to screw up a story that everyone that's read it so far seems to really love.

Pressure much?

I don't think it's that I'm sharing too early-- I'm a big sharer. I have a crit group that reads for me often (*waves at Amelia & Janelle*) and Jess and b read things practically as they fall out of my brain. So I'm not terribly worried that that was the issue.

No, I think I'm having trouble with the fact that I know what happens next and that since I know what happens and it hasn't been formalized into scenes yet, I can still ruin it.

I love this book. Marna's so broken. So's Tenn. Thacker's trying to keep everything together and Lys is ready for a change. It doesn't help that I realized what I was writing the other day (I thought I'd already realized this, but apparently not-- note to self: always check behind you when you stop short on a road when you make realizations about your fiction) (there wasn't anyone there, fyi, but I um, didn't know that before I stopped twelve feet short of the stop sign). It's one of those "personal" things about stories that I'm not entirely comfortable sharing, but it's got to do with some of the themes of the book and how they intersect with my life and, well, this is a book I have to write. I can tell. But it's also BIG and SCARY.

So I decided to jump into the Cinderella for a bit. It's a Cinderella story, right? It's romantic and sweet, but deals with senior year in high school and all the changes and scariness that comes with that, with the added fun of living above a haunted restaurant. I also know the next few scenes and a bunch of the twists in that, right up toward the end.

I'm having the hardest time getting back into it. Cause I know what happens. Ugh! *headdesk*

I know I have to somewhat get over this. I read a great post from Lisa Schroeder last week about how the first draft if your story. I need to remember that. I need to remember that I don't have to write it a certain way. That yes, getting those twists in on the first draft is great, and cutting down on the extra flab I always wind up packing into novels at first is a good thing. BUT... I also have to write the book my way. Or apparently it won't get written.

So tonight I'm silencing that inner voice saying "your pacing's too slow."

You know what? Screw you, I can cut dialogue, I have a revision machete FOR A REASON

It's also saying that I'm not quite getting the words right.

Too damn bad. That's why I have a thesaurus when I REVISE.

My characters are acting strange.

I still don't know them! They're new! I can smooth that out LATER

These are first drafts. They're for me. I silenced those voices when I wrote that first draft of ACCURSED. When I wrote the first draft of THE TIES OF BLOOD. I can-- and will-- do it again. When Darlington and the Cinderella move into second drafts, then we'll bring it with the editorial snark. For now?

Leave me alone. I'm writing.

Or, things that make me pull out my hair.

I've been told my world-building is, generally, pretty good. But there are always questions. Like, "how did Character A do that [insert random supernatural ability here]?" or "wait, so what's the power structure here?" or "Why did Character B do this weird thing if the rules from before say he could just do [simpler thing]"

My answer is usually this:

*shrug*

Not because I don't care to know-- mainly because it's usually either my crit group or my mother or Jess asking me, and they're reading a first draft. And with a first draft, well, I have no idea what I'm doing until I'm at least a few chapters in (and even then, it's kinda iffy).

But at least when I get those questions, I have somewhere to start. When I'm already 160ish pages into a draft, most people don't want to take the time to sit down and play Setting 20 Questions with me so I know (or rather don't know) what's going on in my world.

My usual tactic when I hit a wall on a topic like this is to find the appropriate writing book to flip through. But I have almost as much trouble finding a good book/article/worksheet on world-building as I do actually doing the world-building. Everything I've found is either too science fiction or Big Picture oriented (I'm sure it's great for me to know the imports/exports for Darlington, but they don't much matter to Marna at the moment-- what matters is which Baddie might eat her next).

So, here's where you come in. (If you want.) Basically, I want to know what you want to know about a world when reading a story set elsewhere*. What details do you find interesting? What details do you usually skim/skip over? If the world is Obviously Different, do you assume certain things are the same unless told otherwise, or do similarities jar you?

If you can't think of anything in particular, what fictional worlds do you love & why? Or, conversely, which ones couldn't you get into, and why do you think that is?

Thanks for any help, or any commiserating on the Annoyances of World-Building :)

*Yes, I realize pretty much every book is an elsewhere. Moving on...

So my wrists are doing better-- I'm fairly certain the problem is/was something I wrenched in my back while on my way to SCBWI (since everything wrist-wise kinda went to hell in the days following). I've gotten a massage (bliss) and am getting another one next week because I am apparently one 5'2" ball of stress & knots.

No, really. After being told by my massage therapist that she'd never put that much pressure on a n00b and said something about my "poor little neck" and that I should come back no later than two weeks from that day... Yeah. Plus I just felt so good, and have ever since, I think I'm sticking with that. All you people recommending that I try massage, you were totally right & I should have listened earlier.

Anyway! The real reason for this post, aside from me blathering about the wonders of massage, is that while my wrists are feeling better they are not 100% yet. And as I'm back to both banging out around 1000ish new words a day (Darlington) and hanging out in the revision cave for ACCURSED (which OMG, guys, it's getting so much better-- I love rewrites) which involves anywhere from 50-1000 words/day, well, those activities get my wrists for now.

Unfortunately, I can't end this post without mentioning the passing of L. K. Madigan, author of FLASH BURNOUT and THE MERMAID'S MIRROR. She was dearly beloved by the YA and LJ communities and will be most sorely missed. I never had the pleasure of knowing her, but from the outpouring of love I've seen everywhere online the last few days, I wish I had.