Author Topic: Drifting into Spring Fast Drafting! (Read 32965 times)

PatEsden · « **Reply #1380 on:** August 13, 2012, 06:22 AM »

Susan, it sounds like you've made some major progress

I finished my revisions of MH and started querying.

I'm going to spend this week working on blurbs for potenial sequels--and I'm going to play with my shiny new idea and characters a little. And do some reading!

How about you guys. What are your goals for this week?

Susan · « **Reply #1381 on:** August 13, 2012, 06:40 AM »

O my goodness, one of our threadlings is graduating from Drifting and heading into the Trenches. Great good luck, Pat!

josiecv · « **Reply #1382 on:** August 13, 2012, 09:13 AM »

Liz, I'm so sorry to hear your sad news. I'm sending lots of love & good thoughts your way this week.

Pat, good luck with the queries. I can't wait to hear how much they love it!

Great progress, Susan!

I'm going to do my first read-through of my rough draft today. I set it aside for three full weeks, so hopefully my eyes are fresh and my head is clear. Time to chisel out a revision plan!

Melissa K · « **Reply #1383 on:** August 15, 2012, 11:26 AM »

Wow, it's so much fun to come back after over a week away and see all the progress. You people rock. Have I mentioned that before?

I didn't end up writing much at all on my vacation, but I did a lot of staring at the sky and thinking about my WIPs. Then when I got back, I realized I'd almost missed a deadline for submission to a conference critique. It was a bit of work to get that put together and sent out in time.

I'm all refreshed now and raring to go. Good luck, all!

Anissa · « **Reply #1384 on:** August 15, 2012, 09:42 PM »

OK! The kids are back in school. I'm ready to draft with you all. We'll see about the fast part.

MysteryRobin · « **Reply #1385 on:** August 15, 2012, 10:26 PM »

Yay, Anissa!!! Go!!

Anissa · « **Reply #1386 on:** August 15, 2012, 11:17 PM »

Toot! Toot!

PatEsden · « **Reply #1387 on:** August 17, 2012, 02:04 PM »

I'm not officially drafting,

but I'm playing with the first chapter of my new WIP.

Melissa K · « **Reply #1388 on:** August 17, 2012, 08:23 PM »

I am drafting, but I keep un-drafting yesterday's work before I start re-drafting today's. Fast writing pace, slow movement forward. But, onward!

Welcome, Anissa!

Anissa · « **Reply #1389 on:** August 17, 2012, 08:26 PM »

Thanks, Melissa!

Actual word count was low today, but the ideas they are a flowing.

PatEsden · « **Reply #1390 on:** August 22, 2012, 10:27 AM »

So how's everyone doing?

I'm with you, Anissa and Melissa. Snail

drafting is my speciality.

Still toying with plot ideas and voice, but I've slid a very strange 'gun on the mantel' into the first scene. Delighted by it, actually.

Anissa · « **Reply #1391 on:** August 22, 2012, 01:35 PM »

Ooh, Pat! Love the "gun on the mantel." Makes for such lovely surprises later. Good for you.

I'm still poking along...

But words are words, so I'm not complaining.

Melissa K · « **Reply #1392 on:** August 23, 2012, 12:35 AM »

Pat, I do hope that gun wil be fired by the end.

I'm still here too, still chugging along a bit every day.

ruecole · « **Reply #1393 on:** August 23, 2012, 08:52 PM »

Pat, awesome!

Plug, plug, plug, everyone!

I wrote about 300 words on ETBs last night.

I'd hoped to have the chick-lit novelette finished at this point. Intstead I'm stuck. Bummer.

Rue

Melissa K · « **Reply #1394 on:** August 23, 2012, 11:08 PM »

Bummer, Rue. I do that, too. The stories that seem like they might go fast are always going slower than I want them to. Good luck getting through the muddle.

ruecole · « **Reply #1395 on:** August 24, 2012, 01:02 PM »

Thanks, Melissa.

I'm taking the weekend off and hoping inspiration hits while I'm doing something else (gardening, garage cleaning, school shopping, etc.).

Rue

Melissa K · « **Reply #1396 on:** August 24, 2012, 11:04 PM »

I got some good work done today. Lately I never get to a thousand words, but I at least hit the high hundreds.

Rue, I hope you find some magical object in your garage this weekend--maybe a box of junk that gives you an out-of-the-box idea.

ruecole · « **Reply #1397 on:** August 25, 2012, 12:41 AM »

No inspiration yet, but getting some of the junk out of the house has definitely been a weight off my mind!

I always feel like if I don't hit 500 to 1000 words I haven't made enough progress in a day. But I need to remind myself that 300 words a day is not bad. It's progress. 0 is bad. 0 is NO progress!

Rue

Susan · « **Reply #1398 on:** August 27, 2012, 07:52 AM »

4.5 days off, spent out of town dealing with elderly family darlings (and their slightly less darling cats).

Yesterday, got a solid 3 hours of revision--but somehow, not much progress to show for so much time.

So I decided it was time to refresh my dedication to this 3-pronged technique for inspiring progress:

http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-i-went-from-writing-2000-words-day.html

Helene Boudreau recommended it on this very thread, back in February, and even though I'm not fast-drafting, attending to the 3 steps always sets me back on track.

Hélène Boudreau · « **Reply #1399 on:** August 27, 2012, 08:12 AM »

I'm tip-toeing back into this thread since I just started a new novel (which is one of the secrets I hinted about in the 'I've got a secret' thread but still can't reveal

) so once the kids are back in school next week, I hope to go from slow-snacks-outings-lunches-squabble-busting-drafting to something that resembles fast-drafting.

Lots of great progress/pages/words on this thread!

You all rock!

New Novel Which Will Remain Nameless: 2,200 words

Melissa K · « **Reply #1400 on:** August 27, 2012, 03:24 PM »

Welcome back, Hélène.

Susan, thanks for the reminder about that fast drafting approach. But maybe don't worry yourself too much about a slow first day, not if the next couple of days go okay. It can take the brain a while to sink into the revision.

Rue, how did the weekend go?

I had a good writing day today, got a scene written that has been giving me trouble. 1,300 puffy and imperfect words for the day.

ruecole · « **Reply #1401 on:** August 27, 2012, 07:35 PM »

Go Hélène! Go Melissa!

Weekend off was good. I actually ended up doing a bit of writing yesterday evening. Only a couple hundred words, but I think I may be past the stuck part.

Now just to do some writing TONIGHT!

Rue

Melissa K · « **Reply #1402 on:** August 28, 2012, 03:17 PM »

Hope you got that writing time in, Rue.

I had another 1000-word day today.

That article on raising word counts got me started, months ago, writing notes about a scene before I write the scene. I can't seem to spend just five minutes at it. It can take a full hour, or more, of starts and stops before I find the shape that I need to use. It does seem to lead to a better end product, and I think I might end up cutting fewer pages by the end of the draft. That's good enough news to make the technique seem like the right one for me--but it isn't actually leading to higher word counts on average.

ruecole · « **Reply #1403 on:** August 29, 2012, 03:42 PM »

Thanks, Melissa. I did.

Only a couple hundred words again. But better than 0!

I usually create an outline when I'm plotting (something like Cheryl Klein's book map), but I still find I get stuck at times. I think I may need to try the note-writing strategy--at least for the hard scenes.

RUe

MysteryRobin · « **Reply #1404 on:** August 29, 2012, 09:49 PM »

Looking forward to coming back to this thread next week, once the monkeys are back in school. It's been slooooow drafting this summer.

Melissa K · « **Reply #1405 on:** August 29, 2012, 11:07 PM »

We'll be glad to have you back, Robin.

Rue, that makes sense. I sometimes outline and sometimes don't--but even when I do, I still find the step-by-step scene work useful. But like I said, it's not so much a word count boost as a quality boost for me.

Couple of hundred words for me today, plus some revising. There's an organization problem bugging me that I can't figure out, but for now I'm moving ahead.

A fun technique that's working for me lately is to start every chapter with a sentence that links emotionally to the last sentence of the previous chapter. That's always been a revision activity for me in the past, but lately I'm feeling like it's keeping me grounded during the draft.

MysteryRobin · « **Reply #1406 on:** August 30, 2012, 01:49 AM »

That sounds really interesting, Melissa. Do you have an example you can post?

Melissa K · « **Reply #1407 on:** August 30, 2012, 10:54 AM »

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:

Chapter ending sentence: "I think the superpower might be real," he said.
Next chapter beginning: "Clayton was powerless when it came to Kelsey O'Donnell."

Chapter ending sentence: "He could stop things from happening with his power, but he couldn't control what happened instead."
Next chapter beginning: "Clayton couldn't control what happened after he used his power, and he couldn’t control his power in the first place, either."

I don't particularly like the wording of either of these opening sentences, so I'll probably change them quite a bit in revision. But for now I'm just forcing myself to link scenes together clearly. Before I started doing this, the draft was feeling so scattered it made me wonder if I was ever going to be able to clean it up. Now when I read through I can see what I was thinking when I put the scenes next to each other in the first place, and that helps me a lot. If that makes sense at all?

Susan · « **Reply #1408 on:** August 30, 2012, 09:31 PM »

Oh, hi, Helene! We were just talking about you. . . .

I had 3 good days this week, and 1 total loss. Close to a polished Part 2, then a bit of tidying-up on Part 1, and off to my critique partners while I dive into Part 3.

Since we're talking about outlining and structuring chapters, I'll just offer that I often rough-draft my scenes in CAPS, just brief statements of each emotional beat, carriage return after each beat. I use those lines as the scaffolding as I flesh out the chapter. (The dialogue usually forms up next, and the "prose" last.)

ruecole · « **Reply #1409 on:** August 30, 2012, 10:40 PM »

My first drafts often read like a screen play. Straight dialogue with the barest of scene direction. I always need to go back in and layer in the action, emotion, etc.

My favourite kind of chapter breaks are the type that go something like this:

Chapter ending: I quickly changed into my pyjamas and hopped into bed. As I settled into my pillow, I let out a sigh of relief. Mom and Dad hadn't suspected a thing.
Next chapter beginning: "And just where have you been?" Mom's voice cut through the darkness as the light snapped on. She and Dad were standing in my doorway, arms crossed, looking none-too-pleased.

Great discussion! I love talking about the nuts and bolts parts of writing!

Rue

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Author Topic: Drifting into Spring Fast Drafting! (Read 32965 times)