February 7

Writer’s Log: February 6, 2018

I feel like I’ve reached a major milestone as a writer tonight.

I’m a little over 23k words in my current novel draft, and I’ve decided to start over. As in, completely rewrite it, from scratch.

Since I started the draft, I’ve been feeling like something’s not right. The tone is off. The vibe I’m looking for isn’t there. The depth and description and complexity I’m craving to have in my stories just isn’t coming out the way I’m writing them. And tonight after I started a novel that had such an odd and wonderful opening it made me stop and wonder at it, and then again while watching TV with my husband, that feeling that I needed to start over, in a different place and with a different voice just kept growing until I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

Tomorrow, I start over, and for the first time ever, I’m excited to do so. I can’t decide if I should have my head examined, or throw some sort of “writer milestone” party for myself.

Maybe I’ll even start tonight. Just a few words before bed…

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December 4

Writer’s Log: Dec. 3, 2017 – Words, Yes. NaNo, No.

Weekly Word Counts
MMM: 1,452
TL: 498
TPR: 0
Poetry: 0
The Dry Rain (editing): 0

National Novel Writing Month ended last week, after I’d already thrown in the proverbial towel a week before. I used to be willing to do whatever it took to win, but these days, my health is just too important to me to stay up all night or skip workouts and such, and that’s pretty much the only times I can trim out of my day to write.

Could I have “won” if I’d really wanted to? Sure. A little more discipline and motivation would have gotten it done. But these days, I’m more concerned with just writing something every day, and I’m doing much better with that than I was at the beginning of the month. My goal at the moment is 500 words per day, and I’m doing pretty well at hitting close to that most nights.

Now that it’s December, I want to add a weekly poem to that goal, and also an hour or two of editing on the weekends. I have at least two drafts that just need a little editing before I release them, and will have a few more ready by January. A set time for editing would be really helpful, and I think I know how I can pull it off. Just a little finagling of the weekly household chores.

I feel a lot better about my writing than I have in several years, and that feels good. I feel like I’m progressing as a writer,and ready to start releasing stories into the wild again. Which is a great mental place to be in, but it does make me impatient to start publishing again.

Soon, I hope.

In case you have a few minutes to linger, here’s an excerpt from one of the drafts I’ve been working on – The Matter of Misty Mardeaux (unedited):

It was dark, windy and sputtering rain when Jane finally arrived in Rattlesnake Falls. The bus stop was a gas station-slash-mechanic shop that was closed, of course, and there were no street lights to speak of – just the odd porch light that someone had left on.

From her limited view, the town consisted of one main road and a smattering of small houses and trailers spread out on either side. There were a couple of larger buildings on the main street, larger being a relative term.

“Is someone picking you up?” the bus driver asked, concern in his voice. “No hotels or anything around here, and I don’t see anyone waiting.”

Jane shook her head. “I don’t know anyone here, but I have a house. The town’s not that big – I should be able to find it. Thanks though.”

He gave her a dubious look, but nodded and opened the door. As soon as she stepped clear, the doors closed and the bus trundled off into the night, leaving Jane alone in the dark.

She’d need a warmer coat, she thought as she looked one way, and then the other, trying to decide which way to go. The wind went right through her, giving new meaning to the phrase “bone-chilling”. Raindrops stung against her skin, propelled by the wind and who knows what else in this godforsaken part of the country. She was pretty sure she couldn’t get farther away from her southern home if she tried.

There were lights in the windows of a building up the street in addition to the porch light, and she decided to take a chance and knock on the door. Maybe the only person still up would be able to point her in the right direction for the mansion. She suspected getting lost out here might also mean getting eaten by something with large teeth. If she didn’t freeze to death first.

Why had her family decided to build a house all the way out here, she wondered as she forged up the street against the wind. Why not buy land in the south, or somewhere warm and…populated?

She jumped as something hissed and ran out in front of her – something larger than any cat she’d ever seen. It had a bushy ringed tail and black across its face…could that really be a live raccoon? She’d never actually seen one except on TV. Did they really live so close to where people were?

Stepping up on the lit porch with a sigh of relief, Jane noticed a sign beside the door. US Post Office – Hours six am to four pm, It was well past four…going on eight, actually, but the lights were still on in the back, and whoever worked here would surely know where Jane needed to go.

She knocked firmly, surprised when the door swung open at the pressure.

Crossing the threshold, she closed the door behind her, thankful to be out of that wind even if she was technically trespassing.

“Hello?” She peered into the alcove that held a bunch of post office boxes in the wall, and then over the counter toward the lighted part of the building. “Is anyone here?”

“Coming!” An older but still strong female voice replied, and as Jane waited at the counter, a woman who appeared older than she would have thought moved slowly into view. Catching sight of Jane, she smiled.

“Sorry about the wait – I don’t move as fast as I used to. That’s why I left the door open. Bus driver radio’d ahead and said he was dropping a stranger off tonight. Thought you might be lost.”

“You know the bus driver? And how did he know I was a stranger?”

The older woman laughed. “Because everyone knows everyone around here, Dear. If you plan on sticking around, you will too, soon enough. Now are you visiting someone, or just passing through?”

“Um, neither, actually. I’m Jane Hal–uh–Mardeaux. If you could tell me how to get to the Mardeaux estate, I’d be grateful. I just inherited it, apparently, but the lawyer didn’t give me an address. Just said it was just outside of town.”

The woman looked skeptical. “There hasn’t been anyone in that old house for over a decade, Dear. And it’s a few miles out of town. You could walk, but it would take awhile and there’s no telling what shape it’s in. Might be better to stay here for the night and go out tomorrow morning. I have a guest room you can use, if you’d like.”

Cold, tired, and not at all looking forward to going out in that stinging rain again, Jane wondered if it would be bad manners to accept right away, or if she should refuse and hope the woman tried to talk her into it again. She’d never been good at those social games women played, but right now, she really did kind of just want a warm bed to sleep in.

Her hostess smiled. “I’m Diane Riley, by the way. I run the post office – as you probably guessed, and my son has a camp just up the mountain. Come in through the door there beside the counter. I’ve already got the bed made up and a kettle heating on the stove. Do you prefer tea, cocoa or hot cider? We’ll get you warmed up in no time.”

Category: Writer's Notes | Comments Off on Writer’s Log: Dec. 3, 2017 – Words, Yes. NaNo, No.
October 23

Writer’s Log: October 22, 2017

Weekly Word Counts
Novel draft: N/A
Short prose: (too lazy to add it up…next week?)
Poetry: N/A

Editing hours: A few?

No post last week due to…new bookshelves! Hooray for new book storage!

Progress is happening, slowly but surely…not that you’d know it by my word counts, eh? Part of my progress for the past couple of weeks has been integrating planning/plotting into my writing process, which is something I haven’t really worried about before. I’ve generally been a “pantser” – writing without an outline, plan, or much of an idea at all about where the story is going. But I’m trying something new, and kind of liking the results so far.

I’m making very vague, general outlines even for my current drafts (WIPs = works-in-progress). These are nothing like the outlines we all learned to make in school, with letters and numbers and bullet points all in neat tabbed sections. These are hand-written or typed (both, in some cases) paragraphs describing in very general terms who is doing what, and where…and often notes pertaining to motivation and theme as well.

The more complicated the plot, the more notes. Short stories wherein the entire point is for the characters to get laid and have fun doing it (did you forget I occasionally write erotica too?) get a couple paragraphs each, while a story with a bit more substance might get a full page.

A complex story with multiple interwoven plots (like the one I plan to write next month) warrants several pages of notes.

Whenever I tried this before, I always lost interest in actually writing the story after planning it, because I already knew what was going to happen. This time seems to be different…it *feels* different. Perhaps because I have more discipline for the actual work of writing now than I did before. Or maybe because I know that I still don’t really “know” what will happen until I actually write it. Stories change course quite often based on the characters and their actions, and I’m far more aware of that and used to it happening now. So I expect it will happen even with my “outlines”, and am not so sure I know exactly how things will happen. Which keeps me interested in writing the story, thank goodness.

In any case, I’ve been doing line-edits by hand, which is far more productive than working on-screen for me, and I’ve also been carving out a few more short stints of time in which to write/edit/plan outside of my normal late-night time. I’m still getting more sleep, and still using the Neo for the bulk of my drafting. I’m actually planning to buy a spare Neo to keep around, just because it’s proven so handy in writing without the distractions that are just…right there on my laptop. And it’s also so much easier on my eyes. I can’t tell you how invaluable that really is.

So, good, measurable progress. Next week, I want to be writing at least 14k per day, and then NaNo starts the week after.

Yikes!

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October 8

Writer’s Log, October 8, 2017: New habits & a printer

Weekly Word Counts
Novel draft: 0
Short prose: ?
Poetry: N/A

Editing hours: 0

This week’s been a little hit and miss for writing, due to my trying to get more sleep and having to rearrange my writing schedule in order to do that. I have gotten some new words down, obviously, but not nearly as many as I would have liked. This does not bode well for next month’s novel sprint. But all I can do is try harder to keep to my established writing hours and try to find some extra writing time on the weekends to make up for what I can’t do during the week.

I did get some new words in, but I haven’t had time to upload them from my Neo to my laptop yet, which is why I’m not sure of the word count (above). I need to get in the habit of doing that nightly before I head for bed. New habits take awhile to form though. I’m workin’ on it.

I have three more weeks to finish at least two drafts in progress. They’re short stories (around 10k words each), and if I really buckle down, I should be able to finish in two. But…it’s never really that easy, is it?

I’ve also been trying to do some editing this week, with no luck whatsoever. I did decide to go back to editing on paper rather than digitally…as much as I prefer to stay as paperless as possible, marking up a draft is just easier when I have the tactile sensation of pen and paper.

In order to do that, I had to go buy a printer, which we did on Wednesday. And after I got it set up, I printed out the draft I’ve been trying to work on. Tomorrow is a federal holiday, so I’m off work, and I plan to mark up as many of those pages as possible while I’m home. Down the line, I’ll have to figure out how to work editing into my regular writing hours somewhere, but since I have the day, I’ll might as well make good use of it.

I need to figure out some weekend hours to use on writing-related stuff, but as I mentioned, the sleeping more thing is requiring a lot of habit changes at the moment. So…we’ll see. For now, I just really want to try to write 1000 new words a day this next week, and get those edits marked up so I can start putting the revisions into the digital document. If I get those two things done, I’ll be a happy camper next weekend!

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October 1

Writer’s Log Oct. 1, 2017

Weekly Word Counts
Novel draft: 0
Short prose: 2,105
Poetry: N/A

Editing progress: none

The novel draft count probably won’t go up much this month, as my goal is to edit the novel drafts I have done, and then start a new one for NaNoWriMo on November 1st. I will count any new words written for novel drafts there, so we’ll see.

I am slowly raising my daily wordcount, though it’s nowhere near where it needs to be yet. In November, I’ll need to write 11k words per week – 1667 per day. So I have a long ways to go, but at least it’s creeping up. Honestly, if I wrote that much for the next two weeks, I’d have two of the short stories I’m working on done and be nearly done with the third. A motivating thought, for sure.

I’ve switched up my writing time yet again, in order to get more sleep (more on that on the Variety Pages blog tomorrow). So all of my writing time has shifted back to nights – 10:30pm to 11:45pm, to be exact. And when I can swing it, 10:15pm to start for an hour and a half. I like it better than doing half-hour sprints, honestly…easier to get in the “zone” and stay there. And when I’m in top writing “condition”, I can generally write around 800 words an hour, so it won’t be difficult at all to hit my NaNo daily counts once I work back up to it.

I’ve been experimenting with voice lately, and surprisingly, I’ve written one piece in first person and started another in first person as well. It’s significant because I really don’t generally care for first person when I’m reading, and I’ve never written in first person before. It’s kind of scary, to be honest. Because while I have a definite disconnect in reading first person (I can’t put myself into the story when I’m reading first person – the personal pronouns prevent it, because it’s someone else speaking), writing it feels almost *too* personal. Like there’s too much of myself going out there on the page.

And as this second “first person” story I’m working on is a thriller/horror story, there’s always a little voice in the back of my head screaming that people will think the “I” in the story is actually “me”, and cart me off to the looney bin just as a preventative measure for society…

An interesting experiment, in any case. First person narratives are pretty popular among both readers and writers lately, so maybe I’ll be trendy for once. We’ll see, I suppose.

I haven’t gotten any editing done lately, mostly due to technical issues. That is, thinking I’m going to do the read-through and notes on my cell during breaks or whatever, and then not actually taking breaks, and not getting to it. I think what I need to do with these drafts that need a lot of work (which is all of them at the moment) is to do a straight read-through, then grab a piece of paper (actual paper, not digital) and make note of the actual synopisis I want to change it to, and a broad plan of what needs to change and where. Then I can go back in and edit through, rewriting where necessary and line-editing everything else as I go.

I think the read-through portion needs to be done as fast/consistently as possible, so that I get the continuity (or lack thereof) of the draft in my head right from the start, and that’s been my major issue I think thus far. So I’m hoping to have all my housework and such done early enough tonight (Sunday) that I can do at least a partial read-through of a draft, finish the read-through and notes over the next couple of days, and I think that will give me a better overall picture of what I have vs. what I need and how to fix it.

I have a plan…hopefully it will be the one that works!

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September 25

Writer’s Log Sept. 24, 2017

Weekly Word Counts
Novel draft: 0
Short prose: 1459 (approx)
Poetry: 66

Editing hours: N/A

So…finally remembering to update here. I know. But a lot of weekends I’m doing housework right up until 1am, and I barely have time to get my BSB blog and my main Variety Pages blog updated, much less anything else. I’m going to try to do better though, and today (Sunday), I feel like I’m at least partially ahead of the game. Go me!

In any case, I took my vacation week in September, finished that novel draft I was struggling with, and I’ve since been working hard on establishing new, daily writing habits morning and night. And finally, it’s working. I’m making progress. Writing stories. Making time for reading too. The only two things I need to do now is make sure I have an hour in the evenings (instead of the half-hour I normally cripple myself with) and I need to find time for editing the drafts I already have done and waiting.

But I have to say, just getting that half-hour both morning and night to write has done wonders for my disposition and attitude toward the whole thing. Getting new words down regularly makes me feel good, and productive. Which makes me eager to write more, and it’s a great cycle to finally be caught up in again.

In the mornings, I write on my laptop. I’m still too asleep to have much trouble with being distracted, so I open my WIP and get to work, typing away for half an hour (sometimes longer, which isn’t good because then I get behind, but…at least I’m writing).

In the evenings after my kitchen is clean and no one needs anything more from me (finally), I sit in the armchair in my office with my Alphasmart Neo, and type away for at least another half-hour (sometimes longer). I do force myself to stop and take 15 – 20 minutes for reading before I go to bed, which is important to get my head winding down and ready for sleep, and also important just because it’s important to “fill the well” so to speak.

I would have more time for writing at night if I got off the couch and got to chores faster, but it takes forever for the dogs to settle after their walk, and when they finally do, I settle too. And I don’t really want to get up again right away. It’s a process. I’m hoping this week I can figure out how to settle them more quickly, so I have more downtime, and ultimately I can get back to my office more quickly. Come November, I’ll need that full hour at night to make my daily wordcounts (and the morning sessions to get ahead).

I think the only way I’m going to “get around” to editing is to find some time on the weekends to spend on it. Weekend time is in rather short supply, but I think I might be able to set aside a couple of hours most Sundays to spend on revisions. I also need some time to spend on world-building/outlining, for both my revisions and the next novel draft I plan to write in November, and I think I’ll try to do that on Saturdays.

With any luck, I’ll have a few stories ready to release around Christmas this year, and more shortly thereafter. I have quite a few drafts done – they just need to be revised/edited, and more in progress. Exciting!

So, onward. Another week of writing to look forward to. Feels good to be getting words down daily (or almost) again.

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August 21

Writer’s Log Aug 14 – 20 (Persistence)

Weekly Word Counts
Novel draft: 655
Short prose: 1025
Poetry: 106

Editing hours: N/A

It was another somewhat tough writing week last week…mostly because I was struggling with whether or not I should continue the draft I’m working on as it is, or find a somewhat quick ending for it and put it out of its misery. I feel like I’ve learned so much since I started it – things I need to apply to it before I think about publishing it – that it might be better just to find an end for the blog serial and then do what I need to do as far as revisions go on the back end.

I finally settled on something in the middle, but I’m still really annoyed that it needs so much fix-up work. I really hate revising. And I have to find time for it, too, which is a difficult thing when I want to keep moving forward, and writing new stories. Revisions take a lot of time. It sucks.

But, I’m trying to find a good week in September to take a vacation from the day job, which will give me some of that much-needed time for revisions, both on this particular draft, and a couple of others I’d like to revise and get published by Christmas. So hopefully I can pull that off.

As for that flash piece I started (the 1025 words up there) – well, it was a prompt-inspired story that I really kind of want to expand out into a longer story now. So that will go into the “ideas” file, because I couldn’t quite find a satisfactory ending to this flash version, but I think it will make a nice little short story when I have some time to finish it up. Heck, maybe even a novel. We’ll see.

This week I’m hoping to do some planning for those revisions I need to do alongside my normal writing. Here’s hoping…

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August 15

Writer’s Log Aug. 7 – Aug. 13 (Backstory)

Weekly Word Counts
Novel draft: 794
Short prose: 233
Poetry: 80

Editing hours: N/A

Last week was pretty much a fail for writing (no sense in beating around the bush, eh?). I barely got my serial chapter done on time, started but didn’t finish my prompt story, and was writing the prompt poem late Friday night. No work on any other drafts, no world building exercises, no editing. Nada. Annoying and frustrating, but some weeks are just like that.

I did work on backstory for the main character in my serial draft, which was good. It needs to be moved to earlier in the book and sprinkled in rather than info-dumped, but for now, sticking it in that last serial chapter will be okay. I need to think about things like this earlier in the writing process – they’ve always been an after thought until now.

Dean Wesley Smith is doing workshops on “pantsing” that he calls “Writing into the Dark” (which is admittedly a better name, but also quite a mouthful). They run about every month, and I’m planning to take one this fall and get an insider look at his practices and methods for writing off the cuff, but still managing to keep track of settings, backstories and all that good stuff so only one draft with minor editing after is needed.

I hate revisions. *Hate* them. So anything I can do to write a clean, nearly perfect first draft, I’ll do.

In any case, bad writing week last week…better writing week already started this week. So, onward.

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August 6

Writer’s Log July 31 – Aug. 6, 2017 (Setting as Character)

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.
– Daniel J. Boorstin

Weekly Word Counts
Novel draft: 803
Short prose: 1161
Poetry: 0
Editing hours: N/A

I’ve been thinking a lot about layers in fiction lately. And until I started thinking about this (I read some articles and such that got my wheels spinning), I didn’t realize that my plots tend to be pretty one-dimensional stories. It’s partially a side-effect of “pantsing” – I don’t know where the story’s going until I get to whatever point it branches off at, and I don’t know anything about most of my characters until I discover it while I’m writing. After I get done with a draft, if I do think up more layers that would flesh the story out, so to speak, I’m often too lazy to go back and “revise” them in. I can see hints of where I nearly got it right in my older stories, but so far, I’ve been missing that particular boat.

It’s not that I think my plots are bad. But some of them are just thin, and need to be filled in with more details and description.

Story layers, as it turns out, comes from knowing a lot more about the character’s backgrounds than the reader, and exploiting that knowledge. It’s about knowing the history behind the story I’m telling, and deep details about the setting, and being able to leverage all of that to make a deeply layered “story space” that meshes it all into one, richly layered story.

Here’s where our quote of the week above comes in: I thought I knew how to do this. Or rather, I thought that because I was enjoying the story as I wrote it, and there was enough detail for *me*, that there was enough detail to entertain a wider audience as well. And I was wrong. Which is fine (ie, I’m not being all pity-party/whiny here, just noting facts).

To be clear, some people have enjoyed my earlier books and short stories. Some stories have been more successful than others, and some have languished. But they haven’t caught on with a wider audience, and I think this is at least one of the reasons why (my non-existent marketing skills are undoubtedly another).

Yes, you say. But you’ve been thinking this to death. What are you going to *do* to fix it? And when? As it turns out, I need to break the process down and work on it one section at a time, rather than trying to keep track of it all at once. For now. Eventually I’ll be able to create richly layered stories more automagically, but only once I can recognize and properly execute the different types of layers separately. It’s just how my mind works.

So that’s what I’m doing, and I’ve already been working on it this past week, with what I think are good results. Mostly in the form of world-building. Even that, I’ve started to break down into its component parts.

For example, I have a few different fictional towns I like to set my stories in. Calling them “settings” is really a misnomer at this point – I came up with a name and general location, and then just wrote what I needed for the story in as I needed it. I never once actually sat down and thought about what else was in the town, or any of its history aside from what I needed for that particular story. And that didn’t bother me because since I started writing, I’ve been focused on the characters and the actual story/plot, leaving the setting as just “filler”, basically.

I realize now that if I knew how my fictional towns are laid out, where the buildings are, why they are there in relation to other buildings, and what the history of the town is, I can really use all of that information as a layer that peeks through the narrative at key times and gives the story atmosphere and richer detail.

To the other writers out there who may be reading this and going “well, duh”…whatever. Keep your judgmental comments (I swear, writers – especially those who make money doing this – can be some of the most judgmental people I know) and eye-rolling to yourself. We all figure this out as we go, unless you just automatically knew from the start, in which case, kudos to you. I didn’t, but I’m learning now.

In any case, I spent a fair amount of time thinking up the details for a manor and its estate in one of my fictional towns this past week. Details, history, location, and by extension, part of the town layout and topography. I’ll finish the town layout and history this next week. I’ve only used this particular town in one draft so far, so I can go back in revision and edit the parts of the story that take place in the town to include little details I couldn’t before. And of course I’ll have all of it, including my manor estate, done and ready for reference when I start on the next draft and any other stories I might write that will be set there.

You can visit alter-ego Alex’s site to read about the manor estate, if you’re interested…

More world-building next week, and then…on to character building/histories. Back to basics, as they say.

Category: Writer's Notes | Comments Off on Writer’s Log July 31 – Aug. 6, 2017 (Setting as Character)
August 1

Writer’s Log: July 24 – 28, 2017

Weekly accountability. It’s a good thing for people like yours truly who are prone to severe procrastination and work best on tight deadlines. So, I’m going to try to update this blog once weekly again starting…today, and hopefully next week I’ll have word counts to share as well. I’m sort of transitioning between writing programs at the moment, and I was too lazy to add up the meager count for this week.

For the last few weeks I’ve been getting up half an hour earlier than I used to, just to give myself enough time to wake up and have half an hour to write in the mornings before work. And while it’s kind of been a bumpy start, it is working for the most part. As it turns out, I write better and faster even half asleep in the morning than I do late at night. A sad truth, since I much prefer being up late at night than getting up early in the morning.

In any case, half-hour in the morning and another half-to-hour at night means I’m getting more writing done overall…on the days that all goes well. Which is generally three out of five days, because I’m either lazy, distracted, or unorganized (some days, all three). But the important thing is, I’m getting my serial chapters done early every week, and most weeks my prompt stories for the BSB site are getting done ahead of time as well. Which is far less stressful than doing any of those things the night they need to be posted. I just need to get with the program on the other two days (Tuesday I can’t write in the mornings due to an adjusted work schedule, so really, just Mondays). Baby steps.

I’ve been thinking a *lot* about craft lately, and how to specifically give my stories that “thing” they’re missing that makes a story really stick with the reader after it’s done. All about character depth and descriptive settings and backstory and keeping track of those peskily illusive timelines…it’s a lot to keep track of.

But I’m learning, and trying, and playing with descriptive techniques, and resigning myself to the fact that until I get these things so ingrained in my head and writing habits that I just “do” them, I’m going to have to revise and rework drafts. The part of writing I hate the most, but it must be done.

So, while I haven’t published anything in a couple of years, I think I’ve been studying the craft of writing enough to hopefully make my next published work quite a bit better. And while I’d like to sell a bunch of books and make some extra spending money, that’s not actually the main catalyst for me. I want to be a good storyteller. I want people who read my books to get lost in them, and want more.

I want to create stories that are addictive, that keep readers turning pages, and that incite them to either leave reviews or just recommend my books to other people, without being prodded or asked to. Call it ego – that’s really what it is, but that’s what I want.

And I guess what I needed to decide over these last few years was, how much work am I willing to put in to get to that point? The answer is, more than I thought. Thank goodness, because writing is just something I do, and if I decided working at it wasn’t worth the effort, I’d just be writing the same books over and over again for the rest of my life. Which sounds boring.

So…that’s where I’m at. I’m finishing a non-layered, needs a lot of work draft because I stupidly decided to serialize again (it gives me good, solid deadlines to do that, but seriously? Yeah. Last one.). But after I’m done with the serial draft, I’ll set that aside for “layering”, and get started on a book I’ve actually been loosely plotting out with the requisite layers already worked in, and I’m quite excited to see how it’s going to go. I’m sure that someday, I’ll be able to do all of this layering and description, etc without being so thoughtful about it, but until it becomes second nature, more deliberate writing is what I need to focus on.

I’m impatient. I want to be good *yesterday*. I don’t want to have to put in so much time just “learning”. Alas, such is life. I have the choice to either work at improving, or stay the same (or quit writing, which really isn’t a choice – I always fail at that one). I don’t want to stay the same so…uncomfortable and time-consuming improvement it is.

I think I’m going to need a lot more tea. A few bottles of wine too.

 

Category: Writer's Notes | Comments Off on Writer’s Log: July 24 – 28, 2017