Tuesday, July 23, 2013

More thoughts from down in the trenches

My posts are getting shorter, and I suspect I have some kind of boomerang disorder where I write really long posts for no particular reason and try out new things like the podcasts (back to those soon), and get stuck on sharing insights, although--to be honest, most of the time I don't because it feels kind of weird to write a two sentence post and by the time I sit down to write something longer the thought escapes.

Couple of days ago, I realized what was killing my opening (and story) and said, "Ah--now, finally I can write!" And went off to write. It worked great while I fixed the broken piece and stopped again.

This morning was different. I've been staying up extra late, not that it helped--staring at the cursor is the same whether it's at 3am or 10.30 am, and finally--I gave up. Tell you, all those early rejections, all that study--I'm not a quitter. But I simply couldn't do it. I can't write in linear order to save my life. I write the Honoria stuff in a series of scenes I feel like working on and write the beginning last. They're erotica, but I like to think they're well written erotica. The series arc is sound and there's some movement in each piece, although I admit, I do it just so I can visit Danton. He's been one of my favorites since The Regency that Won't Die, something I suspect every regency writer has under their bed. I must have sent the poor guy through every cheezeball trope ever--up vine-covered walls, down conveniently rough cliffs, over tall hedges, into fights with burly French riflemen and the Siege of Badajoz. All three of them.

Once I stopped forcing it and just wrote the scene I felt like writing, I wrote and wrote and wrote until my fingers hurt. Then I moved it to the end of the file and wrote something else. And moved it to the middle. Sooner or later it'll all link up, and that's productivity head-desk #2. Don't fight your natural processes. There's a big difference between one hundred words in two days and 3k over the course of five hours.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

On the topic of process, I've realised that I'm not a complete pantser, or at least not as much as I thought. When I write non-fiction (blog posts or writing articles) I always jot down some notes on the ideas I want to include. A sort of outline. And I like having the same loose idea of where my story is going to go too. I may not use every idea (just as in the non-fiction writing my notes might become two posts instead of one) but it's good for me to have some idea of where the story might go.

Writing non-chronologically might work for me too - writing those scenes/ideas that I already have noted down and filling in the gaps later.

I'm enjoying the posts - they're making me think about the how of getting words on paper. :)

Unknown said...

Sounds like you have a good grip on your non-fiction process, Lisa. :) I write my blog posts the same way.

I wish I'd thought about the actual "how-to" a long time ago. Recently I started to suspect my stuff was a lot more useful for editing rough draft or fixing something that was mostly or already written. I'm looking for a way to get it into the process so I can strip away time. :)

Glad you're enjoying the posts!