Ok, I've had lots and lots floating around in my head about my Cinderella story, but no words.

Also, I am *late* on my literature paper. Not only did I start late, but I got stuck, so I am on a self-imposed blog exile until it is done (hopefully on Monday).

Sayonara!

Yesterday I revised on LNR some more. I am down to revising one more caller and the ending, and writing one more caller's segment, so there is an end in sight.

Except now I'm not sure if anyone but me wants to read it. I think the writing is ok, but the premise of the story? I don't know. That's one reason why I am leaning toward joining the critique group, to get that kind of feedback from other people who read in the genre I write in. But I want to have something in hand before joining.

I also dug out the Dragon story I started back in March and started typing it up. It is not too bad, and I had managed to hand-write about 7 pages. But once again, a crisis of confidence struck before I could finish typing up zhe whole thing, so I saved what I had and went to bed.

"There is no good writing; there is only good rewriting."
-Gustave Flaubert

"I try to leave out the parts that readers skip."
-Elmore Leonard

"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it--wholeheartedly--and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings."
-Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

"We are in the deep cack. It couldn't be worse if was raining arseholes."
-Sergeant Jackrum to troops, Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett

Sometimes I try to think about and pin down how I come up with story ideas—like now when I’m trying to avoid actual writing. (Actually, I did do some revising yesterday, and I felt quite satisfied with the results.) One thing I’ve noticed is that I typically start with a character. Once I know what his or her “deal” is—a little history, a little personality—I start thinking of scenarios, and what would happen if I plonk this person down in this situation. This method seems to have worked ok for my short stories so far.

[I had this whole equation-thing going on to explain, but it seemed to introduce more problems than it explained.]

The problem I am encountering in working on a novel that has been stewing in my brain for ages is that when I adjust one thing, that throws everything else in the story out of whack, and I have to figure out how to tweak everything back into line, or even worse, have to decide what is unsalvageable. I realize that is vague enough to be unenlightening to anyone else, but it is helping me just to formulate what areas are causing me problems.

When I began the sorting project over the weekend, LNR didn’t look too bad: there weren’t a million scraps of paper with notes that I had to sort, so I was pleased to be past that stage. (I didn’t open the envelope with the previous drafts and notes and scraps.) Since I had just written something that goes with the novel story (which I will call VALE for shorthand), I had to make a place for that in the binder. Oh. My. Dwarf. I can still vaguely remember the original premise for the story, but it has gone through at least one distinct version for every 3 pages of notes, and there was a good ½-inch pile of pages. This project may end up being an exercise in futility, but it is keeping me from going mad in my spare time, so it’s all good.

More linkage:

Articles on writing by Marion Zimmer Bradley, of Mists of Avalon fame

Particularly
“Why did my [short] story get rejected?”

I have been in full-on domestic mode recently, so there hasn't been a lot of writing. I cleaned Hannah's room (a 3-day undertaking), baked banana bread and plum cake, cleaned the kitchen, washed curtains, scrubbed the new sunroom, repotted some plants, cleaned my plant stand so I could move it and the newly repotted plants into the sunroom, crocheted a new border for our bathroom curtain, reorganized my recipe binder, and basically avoided writing on my short story and my term paper, both of which will come back to bite me in the butt, I know.

The funny thing is that I have actually had a lot of mental activity on several stories, but I just can't seem to bring myself to sit down for the 5 minutes it would take to jot down the ideas and bits of dialogue that are bubbling up. Why the reluctance? No one else is reading any of it (yet), so why be shy? I'm thinking that maybe it's a control thing. I don't like doing something if I can't do it perfectly or excellently, and writing just doesn't work that way. And I worry that in my reluctance, I'm going to let the interesting little bits slip through my fingers; I mean, they are not going to stick verbatim in my mind indefinitely, right?

I find that when I am changing gears to work on a project, I often need to get organized first. My school supplies are usually toted around in a jumble in my backpack, always on the verge of composting, until it is time to start studying for a test or doing research for a paper or an assignment. Then I drag everything out and sort it into piles, which I then hole-punch and put into binders, or file, or recycle, or shred, depending on what it is. This morning I hauled out my compost pile for LNR and a fresh new binder and the hole-puncher, so I hope this is a step in the right direction, that is, toward writing again.

Another new link: an article at Strange Horizons by Debbie Notkin.

I've been working (in dribs and drabs) on LNR, but just on revising, no new words really. I still have one section to add. I worry that I'm making it worse, but when I've looked at it, I can't believe I had let certain things slide before. So maybe it will be an improvement. I can't say just yet.

Kee? Are you out there? Please check in, even if it's just to say, "I thought about writing today."

I added a couple of new links under Writing and Publishing. Kit Whitfield has a couple of pages on her web site that are funny but useful.

Enjoy.

I have managed to sit down at the computer and work on LNR the last couple of days. The amount of progress hasn't been huge, but it has been progress. I feel really good about the changes I've made and have some ideas about additional changes (some of which I wasn't previously aware that I needed). I have a term paper to write this next week, so I don't know how that will impinge on my creativity concerning LNR, but I am going to try to not let it get in my way.