Next Step

Alright so since I last posted I've done a lot of stuff, including finishing the read-through.

I have a notebook now of all my problems and even have the two problems I was most worried about kind of solved in my head. So it's a successful step in this whole beast of a project! The 'Giant List of Doom' method totally works and I maybe should have done that first. But it was easier to read now that I've gone through it all for phrasing already. So no regrets.

I'll start the actual going-back and chopping things up next week. For now I have a million other projects to get started on/work on/finish before I go back to school in a few weeks so I should do stuff with that.

Other news! I'm making a tumblr. You should all go check it out in a few days once I start posting. For further reference though the url is wilsathethief.tumblr.com! It'll be great fun. It's going to be a writing blog, but not just for my manuscript like this one is. I'm going to supplement this blog, as well as promote it on the tumblr but I'm going to do the more tumblr-esque reblogging and general writing nerdery as well. I used to have a tumblr way back when and the writing community on there is really fun.

The tumblr will also update on my other writing projects, and probably some illustration as well. So yay! more projects! and Art things!

Speaking of illustration: I have like three more painting ideas for this story, and I really want to start working on a full-cast painting, or at least a couple of different-setting casts. I've been doing more digital painting and it's beautiful to work with.

New inspiration: Wildweasel339 on deviantart, I believe his name is Lane Brown? this is a link to ONE of his beautiful paintings: http://wildweasel339.deviantart.com/art/Rooty-Tooty-196344648
but really he does the most amazing things. especially fantasy landscapes and scenes. It amazes me beyond words.

That's all for this post! More next time! (hopefully that won't be three weeks from now!)

On! To the Second Edit

Greetings!

Due to life and school interfering, I have not gotten back to editing until tonight. As it is I'm typing this from backstage of my school's rendition of Macbeth. Someone just walked by me covered head-to-thigh in fake blood; I've been braiding hair all night; it's all crazy fun.

So. Today was beautiful; Spring in Kentucky is the most beautiful season I've ever seen. My college campus is gorgeous, and it's really inspiring. I've also been doing a lot of good reading for school; Macbeth of course, Emma, Murder in Amsterdam, etc. and now that tech week is dying down for the play I'm ready to use all this momentum and good energy and imagination towards my own projects.

I'm working costumes for Macbeth, and between that and knowing I'll be back in town for the next larping event has made me super pumped about redesigning my costume and sketching characters again. I'm super rusty so no sketches to post yet, but soon.

Today I looked at my editing notes again and decided on my game plan this time around. Last edit I was mostly just fixing whatever I could and making it so I was comfortable with the size and quality of what I was really going to work with. Now I have to do the major changes and heavy cutting and pasting, as well as fixing major plot holes and character and scene inconsistencies.

Right now I have a small list beside my original outline (which turned out to be mostly accurate, besides not including the events of two full chapters and almost the whole of Elle's trip to the Mountains) but it's not very detailed and I'm sure I missed some problems. So I've decided on a three-part plan.

First I'll read through the whole manuscript, without stops. I'll write down all the problems I have and where they affect the story and just general problem areas.

Second comes a revamped outline. On Scrivener everything is set up as an outline in the left margin, which will make it much easier to outline and remember chapter names and things. This outline will concentrate on the main plot and goal of each chapter or part and the things that need fixing to accomplish the goal for that section. I'll code things that are local problems and the ones that are farther reaching-that need fixing in multiple places, such as agreement with a certain scene or character trait. This should give me a good guide to what I have to do.

The third part then should be relatively easy- it's daunting now to say "just go and fix everything" but once I have done the first two parts I'll know exactly what needs to be done and a better idea of what specifically I need to do to fix it- I will use my new outline/editing guide and do the fixes. This will involve mostly cutting and pasting and adding or deleting or tweaking scenes to make things agree.

I'm going to go continue my outline now. Wish me luck!

First Edits Done

It's done. I've gotten through the whole manuscript. Wow, that's pretty cool.

So the first edit is done, which is awesome, and I feel like I fixed a lot of the writing. Now I know what major problems need to be fixed, and for the second edits I can go back and do the major cutting and pasting and touching up logistical problems and anomalies.

But first I'm going to take a small vacation. My spring break is next week, so I'll spend that time to do some more editing research, relax, and maybe get some work done on other projects. I haven't written any short things really, I think I'll try and get a few written to get back into writing, instead of just editing. I might even look at my failed NaNo attempt and see if it's worth salvaging.

I'm also going to be working on my art portfolio again, so I'll probably do some more sketches for y'all as I do that. What kind of images are you guys curious about? I'm thinking of doing some more landscape and architecture sketches, I do so few of those.

I do have one sketch to post now- I redid an interior sketch I drew a long time ago. I've fixed a lot of discrepancies and will try and restart that digital painting of it I wanted to do.

So there's that. Wow, I can't believe that last half went so quickly. Kind of makes me scared to go back and see why the beginning gave me such trouble; I doubt I fixed it all up.

I've got a lot of schoolwork to get done now that I can't use my manuscript to procrastinate, so... I guess I'll see you all in two weeks!

What a Fantastic, Wonderful World

This last week has been awesome. In just about every way.

But especially regarding editing progress! I'm kind of on a role, have edited a good amount every day, and gotten through a huge chunk of text. I've organized and edited quite a few chapters-worth of material, and gotten through I think like 30k words. That means of course....

...That I'm three-quarters of the way through! I have around 50k words left, and I expect it to go pretty quickly, seeing how the last 50k went. I'm on a very productive streak right now. But the last part is also more recent, so the writing should be more according to my present level. Of course my present skill level in writing may not be amazing anyway, but at least it's waaay better than it was two years ago. Way. Better.

I now run the risk- and I feel I was doing this over the weekend, when I went through a huge mass of text in one sitting- of just reading instead of editing. Which is good in that I find my own writing decent enough to enjoy reading, but also bad because I'm not thinking or reading as critically when I do that, I think. So I'm going to try not to do too much at once (who thought I'd ever have this problem) so I won't fall into an easy and lazy habit.

Many major things need to be solved- like major choices made by characters- there was something that impacted many chapters that was caused by Taim, but I don't remember the reasoning I put behind it when I wrote it, since it doesn't seem to make sense now. These types of things I've made notes of (something Scrivener has been awesome about and is very handy for) and will review my original story notes and figure out solutions for my second edit. That may be the procrastinator in me, but I don't want to stop my momentum now and I can't wait to get the preliminary editing done.

So I'll see you next week! And hey, I'm even getting to bed before midnight tonight! What a grownup.

Page: 306/415

Problems I'm Thinking About:
-logistical consistency
-character development
-messy writing and being too wordy(one of my main problems. It's horrific, really.)
-Pacing, especially regarding action and suspense for emotional scenes.
-making sure characters agree both with their own reason in their decisions and actual logic.

Halfway!

I'm officially over the half-way mark in editing! (At least for the first run-through)

But it's really exciting. I have around 90k words left, which are already divided into two big chunks.

I knocked through the middle chunk this weekend at an amazing pace- as my friend suggested, the muse visited, and I sat for over three hours straight editing this thing. I think it's mostly because I got to a point where the original writing WASN'T horrible should-be-burned quality- which is also really exciting! It's fun not to hate my own stuff!

I'm also completely out of the middle part of my manuscript now, moving on as soon as I post this to Part Three. Much excitement. BRING THE ACTION.

Another reason for my inspiration this weekend I think came from watching a couple Ghibli films. I watched Spirited Away and Ponyo each for the first time, and they're just (oh my god) beautiful. Not only is the art amaaaazing, but the stories themselves amazed me- I can't think of many (if any, other than Ghibli) films that focus on love in the same way. In Spirited Away and Ponyo the protagonists are all young children, and yet they succeed due to true love. It is refreshing, because it isn't necessarily romantic love, but it isn't just the love of a family member, like a lot of things with younger protagonists focus on. It's just true love- which is really actually simple, despite how we seem to overanalyze and categorize it in real life. Why can't we just love wholly and with abandon, without having to invalidate or categorize it? It's limiting and I like that Ghibli did away with those boundaries.

The only way all that is relevant is that I would like to include something like that- in fact I think that's what I did try to do with one of my characters (who conveniently is introduced in Part Three) and maybe I can do a better job now, being aware of that and seeing it successfully (and beautifully) done.

I may or may not have to go draw some Spirited Away fanart. (But more editing first!)

Page: 222/415

Problems I'm Thinking About:
-logistical consistency
-character development
-messy writing and being too wordy(one of my main problems. It's horrific, really.)
-Pacing (I've noticed many things I've done right with pacing and many instances where I've done it very horribly wrong, so I want to play more with that now that I see it. I feel like it might become even more important, with the coming action.)

Hope you all had a wonderful Saint Valentine's Day!

Part One Down. Next Up: The Fluff.

I've gotten through Part One! Yay!

Elle is changing locations now and she's going to what actually might be my favorite place in the story, the mountain nation. It's modeled after seventeenth century France in a lot of ways, and is full of extravagant characters and situations and I'm very excited to read this for the first time.

It's been almost exactly a year since I've seen these pages.

This whole mid-plot excursion to the mountains is also where I'm going to have to make a big choice regarding cuts, I may in fact decide to cut the entire thing and here's why I think that:

It doesn't do much to further the main plot of the story. It serves to inform Elle and the reader of the larger world and a lot of political relationships that come into play throughout this story and later ones, but nothing I think I couldn't do just keeping her at home or something less involved.

I get a bit self-indulgent, and this is definitely a product of that. What I remember about this part was making pretty designs for fun characters and settings, which I have a weakness for. I also was trying to be a bit art-y and I don't know if that really serves my purpose well. It's a lot of worldbuilding, again, but maybe not entirely necessary to this story.

It gets really long, and might be too long and boring. Again, I think I was pretty self-indulgent with this and the pretty pictures. I've been warned often of having a slow middle to the story and while this may be pretty it might slow it down. It's also a large chunk of my manuscript and cutting it out might make it a more navigable/marketable/otherwise more appealing and thinner hunk of paper. We shall see.

These are all my preliminary worries about this particular segment of my manuscript. Of course I haven't seen it in a year so we'll see if my opinion of it changes as I read. How do you all feel about scenes or entire chapters whose primary goal is world-building? Are they laborious and boring? Or do they add dimension and context to the main plot? I'd like your opinions, because I'm not sure of my own.

But tonight I rejoice! And bring out another blog post. I just went back into my Word document and found my place, so I have a page number for you.

Page: 133/415

Problems I'm Thinking About (besides what I just outlined in the body of the post)
-I'm still focusing on character development and consistency
-and of course fixing the immature writing.
-I read something today about each chapter having a certain level of suspense, and will have to keep an eye on keeping it interesting. I don't have enough distance right now though, that will have to be a next-edit thing where I read through the whole thing before editing instead of editing as I go like I am now.

End of Book One

11:35 PM 4/20/2013

It's done.

I just finished the first complete draft of my first manuscript. Ever.

Hold on, let me do math for a second...

It's been 536 days since I started.

I can't believe this.

Final Word Count: 191,169

Now I'm going to go surf the internet and grin like an idiot until I come down from this high and can go to sleep. Goodnight, everyone.

Tomorrow I'll start planning the edits.