notes from the composition front
Nov. 2nd, 2004 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Have been falling prey to distractions quite easily, as we get into our second twenty-four-hour period. Heck, I spent most of yesterday evening distracted. I can focus for about 500 words, and then I futz around for an hour or two, and then I get another 50 while distracted, and then I focus for the other 500 so I can keep up my pace of making a post to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
treigylgweith every 1000-2000 words. (I am logging the process there, as well; the writing I'm posting isn't that important, compared to my notes on the process. I stick the writing behind a cut and don't even read it over. So anyone who wants to get a clearer picture of how I'm getting these wordcounts, it may be instructive to go over there. I'm not in any great hope of beta-reading at this point.)
This is going, structurally, a little differently than my usual. It is not unprecedented for me to be able to write very extended runs of sequential scenes. I have done this before. But it's coming much more clearly sequentially than usual, and I am actually feeling constrained to write in order, which I have not felt in the past.
I think this might be a response on my part to the noveling effort just prior to this, a messy affair that began intensively last January and extended, trailing off into intermittent spurts, until last month. That novel, I wrote freely all over the timeline, re-outlining at will, holding myself entirely unconstrained by time and space. i got some great ideas that way. But I also threw out nearly half a million words, over various plot lines that were abandoned. That is half a million words that I wrote, sometimes even polished, and could not use.
I am very eager now to have the majority of my words count. I would not take away the experience I've had this year. I have learned a ton. I have generated more ideas than I will ever use, but I have thoroughly composted my brain with them. I am entirely un-intimidated by even the most difficult plot twist.
But I am tired, tired of writing out of sequence and having to rewrite.
I am most eager that this particular tale should be told, in order, with as little waste as possible. Waste is important for creativity; I never made it as a painter because I couldn't stand to waste paint. You have to give yourself permission to do whatever it is that you feel you need to do next, even if it involves tremendous waste.
But, you have to be economical sometimes. I think it is fair to see this current novel as a well-fertilized stalk growing from the massive compost heap of the last one. (No, that wasn't me admitting that the last novel was shit! I refuse to put it into the past tense like that. ^.^) I can be spare and economical and sequential with this one, because it draws so much from my experience of the last one, despite being a different genre and different setting.
I prepared rigorously for this novel, doing extensive research and outlining to within an inch of my life. And so I think in this particular instance I have managed to skip the first-draft stage, for the most part. It feels, to me, like I'm writing a second draft already, even though I am composing as I go. I have simply imagined this novel so thoroughly already, and written about writing it so much, that I can go at a furious pace and spend little time in the awkward choreography that makes a first draft take so long.
So, here I am. I hope to make it to 15,000 today. My pace has fallen off; I have things to do, and outside issues in the world are worrying and distracting me. (Please, God, let this goddamn election go smoothly and let me get on with my life.)
Sigh. So, that's all.
Oh, my wordcount. On the left, the count as of 10 am Tuesday. On the right, the wordcount as most recently updated. :) Because I am a dork and may well reread this entry later.
treigylgweith every 1000-2000 words. (I am logging the process there, as well; the writing I'm posting isn't that important, compared to my notes on the process. I stick the writing behind a cut and don't even read it over. So anyone who wants to get a clearer picture of how I'm getting these wordcounts, it may be instructive to go over there. I'm not in any great hope of beta-reading at this point.)This is going, structurally, a little differently than my usual. It is not unprecedented for me to be able to write very extended runs of sequential scenes. I have done this before. But it's coming much more clearly sequentially than usual, and I am actually feeling constrained to write in order, which I have not felt in the past.
I think this might be a response on my part to the noveling effort just prior to this, a messy affair that began intensively last January and extended, trailing off into intermittent spurts, until last month. That novel, I wrote freely all over the timeline, re-outlining at will, holding myself entirely unconstrained by time and space. i got some great ideas that way. But I also threw out nearly half a million words, over various plot lines that were abandoned. That is half a million words that I wrote, sometimes even polished, and could not use.
I am very eager now to have the majority of my words count. I would not take away the experience I've had this year. I have learned a ton. I have generated more ideas than I will ever use, but I have thoroughly composted my brain with them. I am entirely un-intimidated by even the most difficult plot twist.
But I am tired, tired of writing out of sequence and having to rewrite.
I am most eager that this particular tale should be told, in order, with as little waste as possible. Waste is important for creativity; I never made it as a painter because I couldn't stand to waste paint. You have to give yourself permission to do whatever it is that you feel you need to do next, even if it involves tremendous waste.
But, you have to be economical sometimes. I think it is fair to see this current novel as a well-fertilized stalk growing from the massive compost heap of the last one. (No, that wasn't me admitting that the last novel was shit! I refuse to put it into the past tense like that. ^.^) I can be spare and economical and sequential with this one, because it draws so much from my experience of the last one, despite being a different genre and different setting.
I prepared rigorously for this novel, doing extensive research and outlining to within an inch of my life. And so I think in this particular instance I have managed to skip the first-draft stage, for the most part. It feels, to me, like I'm writing a second draft already, even though I am composing as I go. I have simply imagined this novel so thoroughly already, and written about writing it so much, that I can go at a furious pace and spend little time in the awkward choreography that makes a first draft take so long.
So, here I am. I hope to make it to 15,000 today. My pace has fallen off; I have things to do, and outside issues in the world are worrying and distracting me. (Please, God, let this goddamn election go smoothly and let me get on with my life.)
Sigh. So, that's all.
Oh, my wordcount. On the left, the count as of 10 am Tuesday. On the right, the wordcount as most recently updated. :) Because I am a dork and may well reread this entry later.
