Progress and a Brain of Mush
Jun. 14th, 2006 11:10 amI have until midnight tonight to produce one thousand words, or my “Ten thousand words in Ten Weeks” fails after only two successful weeks. Should this happen, I know in exactly which direction to look in order to cast blame. It will rest squarely at the feet of that the story that was bugging me the other day, as it has suddenly developed an obsessive interest in Black Fiddle and keeps telling me it’d rather be part of that than stand on its own.
Damned co-dependent stories. Why can’t you just stand on your own and serve my purposes? Also, when did stories get the idea that they could dictate the way things go?
I don’t approve.
On the editing front, things are looking a lot more promising (I don’t know what particular part of my brain wanted to type “confusing” instead of “promising” there, but I don’t appreciate it. I shall now glare at said part of brain. This, I am sure you will all appreciate, is Not Easy.). But, as I was saying, before my brain so maliciously interrupted me, the editing is going well. At the moment, I’m involved in writing a scene breakdown of the novel, which is slowly turning my brain to mush. The other night, I managed to condense a chapter of three and a half thousand words into a summary of 136 words. This was hailed as both a miraculous achievement and a event little short of sacrilege. How can the essence of three thousands words be boiled down to little over one hundred? It’s a bit depressing, really.
But I’m a quarter of the way through it and it’s giving me a real sense of purpose. Instead of sitting around, vaguely thinking I should work on that second draft, I’m actually doing something about it! It feels weirdly empowering, to be honest. I’m still retaining that sense of glee that I felt the other night and even though the Scene Breakdown of Brain Mushening is hard work, I know that it’ll be worth it when I’m finally done.
Before I go, I’d like to thank everyone for responding so favourably to the excerpts I posted the other night. Your responses are the encouragement I need to keep going forward with this second draft. Thank-you muchly.
Damned co-dependent stories. Why can’t you just stand on your own and serve my purposes? Also, when did stories get the idea that they could dictate the way things go?
I don’t approve.
On the editing front, things are looking a lot more promising (I don’t know what particular part of my brain wanted to type “confusing” instead of “promising” there, but I don’t appreciate it. I shall now glare at said part of brain. This, I am sure you will all appreciate, is Not Easy.). But, as I was saying, before my brain so maliciously interrupted me, the editing is going well. At the moment, I’m involved in writing a scene breakdown of the novel, which is slowly turning my brain to mush. The other night, I managed to condense a chapter of three and a half thousand words into a summary of 136 words. This was hailed as both a miraculous achievement and a event little short of sacrilege. How can the essence of three thousands words be boiled down to little over one hundred? It’s a bit depressing, really.
But I’m a quarter of the way through it and it’s giving me a real sense of purpose. Instead of sitting around, vaguely thinking I should work on that second draft, I’m actually doing something about it! It feels weirdly empowering, to be honest. I’m still retaining that sense of glee that I felt the other night and even though the Scene Breakdown of Brain Mushening is hard work, I know that it’ll be worth it when I’m finally done.
Before I go, I’d like to thank everyone for responding so favourably to the excerpts I posted the other night. Your responses are the encouragement I need to keep going forward with this second draft. Thank-you muchly.
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