Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Sommer Leigh wrote:

Claudie wrote:

She rewrote it five times before she thought it was a halfway decent first draft.

Whoa, wait, I thought rewriting 5 times before you get a decent first draft was normal! Oops...

Wait wait...who said first drafts were supposed to be decent?!?!? Their whole purpose in this world is to suck extremely well.

Oh, no. This was five rewrites to get to an acceptable level of suck rather than "this truly is a disaster" type suck. That wasn't for it to be a finished first draft, it was for her to get through the first draft so she could begin the revising process.

You're totally right, though. A "good first draft" is about as big of an oxymoron as you can get.

dios4vida wrote: Yes. Yes yes yes. Sometimes I think my family believes I'm going insane (and folks who put up with me on a certain writer's forum, as well) because I'll flip flop like that on occasion. More often with this novel than my others. Some days it's like I can't write to save my life, I'll never finish this darn thing, I might as well trunk it now and then within the next day or two I'm zipping off the most perfect chapters I could possibly hope for. I don't understand it, but you aren't alone.

Glad I'm not the only one! I'm usually pretty steady going but every once in a while...Definite case of the Am-I-Crazies

CharleeVale wrote: I'm in need of some encouragement. I know that may seem strange given all the great news that I've been sprouting over at the Squee thread, but this WIP is not behaving. My last book was so easy to write, as writing books go. It felt effortless, and it was truly enjoyable. I couldn't wait to sit down and work on it.

It's not like that with this WIP. This one is HARD. I find myself procrastinating because every time I sit down to write, getting words out is like pulling teeth. I love the concept, and I truly believe that it will end up being a fantastic book. I just don't know why it's so difficult. Writing has never been this difficult! Ugh!

I'm definitely in the same boat. I think it's so different from my first book because 1) The first book was semi-auto biographical. You know, the stuff you've been trying to get off your chest for a while 2) This one is just a more challenging, bigger book with lots of world-building.

I think it depends on what is holding you back. Is it because you haven't fully figured out where it's going? Maybe taking break to let your ideas gestate would be best to allow you to attack it freshly later. Or perhaps just some world-building/brainstorming exercises are in order. Is it just about meeting your expectations? Then forcing yourself to write anything, no matter how bad it is might be better, aka Butt In Chair method. Sometimes, life just gets in the way. Personally, I can't write if I'm totally stressed for outside reasons either.

Unfortunately, sometimes it's hard to know what's stopping you! Ugh. Maybe some books are just tough.

I think that's why these writing discussions are so great. We analyze our processes until we understand how we work best. Everyone is different. So take it as a learning experience for your next book. At least, that's what I'm trying to do.

Subject change -

So, for the past four weeks or so I've been toying around with an idea. Keep in mind it is a very preliminary idea and I'm just sketching out ideas right now all on my lonesome, but I was considering organizing a summer's end critique festival (like a music festival for writers!) Once I hashed out some details I was going to tap my awesome friends on the Bransforums for help and resources. I was thinking maybe a week long, across many blogs, doing public critiques, teaching how to do critiques, forming some festival critique groups, or teaching how to form them in real life.

Not sure yet, but is it even something people would be interested in participating in, reading about, etc?

Color me interested, Sommer!

And guys, I have the most random news today.
1) My most epic scene disappeared for no reason at all. I swear I've written it, but I can't find it anywhere, in any document, in any back-up. I mean... what the heck world?
2) I got a call for a job interview by, listen to this, a shop I can't remember giving my resume to. YEP. And it's a fashion boutique and I am the less fashionable person ever. Tomorrow will be Total Fail.

I think I might have entered an alternate universe.

If you are certain you lost a copy of it somewhere, try doing a search on your computer, or install recuva (a data recovery product that is free). It can find deleted files.

Thanks for the pump-up guys!

I don't think it's anything inherently wrong with the book, I think it's the pressure combined with so much writing publishing stuff going on in my life right now.

1. I am writing this book.
2. I am writing a full length play which is my graduate thesis.
3. I am an editorial intern for Entangled Publishing, which has me reading and editing almost every day.
4. I am querying my other novel, (and I had to query it very quickly due to a kind of out of the blue partial request)
5. I just got back from BEA and am still in brain overload.
6. PRESSURE. Everyone in my writing group is in love with this idea, and my non-group betas are too. I think the pressure is getting to me!

I'm taking the day off from writing to do some other things and recharge my brain cells!

CV

Hmm, I upgraded OpenOffice and the word count is 1600 less than it was previously! I'm guessing it is counting something differently. But my word count spread sheet is sad now.

Sommer Leigh wrote:Subject change -

So, for the past four weeks or so I've been toying around with an idea. Keep in mind it is a very preliminary idea and I'm just sketching out ideas right now all on my lonesome, but I was considering organizing a summer's end critique festival (like a music festival for writers!) Once I hashed out some details I was going to tap my awesome friends on the Bransforums for help and resources. I was thinking maybe a week long, across many blogs, doing public critiques, teaching how to do critiques, forming some festival critique groups, or teaching how to form them in real life.

Not sure yet, but is it even something people would be interested in participating in, reading about, etc?

Yes! This sounds cool. What a good idea. I'd be glad to help you organize if you need any help.

Sommer--I'm curious to know more about your idea!

This thread is such a great idea--I've really enjoyed reading about others' thoughts on editing vs rewriting and how you all approach writing.

I found the NaNoWriMo CreateSpace code that was usually good for one free proof copy is now only good for 5 free "final" copies. This means generating an ISBN number and having an "official" book. I'm not ready to make that leap, so I've relaxed a bit on my deadline. I am disappointed in CreateSpace, though. I really liked getting a proof copy. On the other hand, they are a business, so I can see why they're pushing NaNo winners to "publish" their books. I just don't feel confident in the ramifications, so I will wait and pay for my own proof when the time comes.

I took off for California last weekend on a last-minute whirlwind trip to do some book research. It was crazy insane, but one of my best vacations ever. I love it when an impulsive idea pays off like that.

However, I took the red eye home and rolled in around 7am yesterday morning. I'm still DRAGGING but I hope to pull out the document tonight and get some work done!

Tricia: Yeah, they changed the offer this year and I really don't like the new one. It's useful if you never meant to publish for real but want to give copies to 4-5 friends/family. However, even the old offer forced you to generate an ISBN for your book, so, you'd have that problem anyway. It's why I used to put all of my year's writing into one "Anthology".


And guys! We're two third of the month through! How are you all holding up to your goals? I'm behind. Not too much on words but a lot of editing. But I'm rather happy with my progress so far and I have a feeling that, safe for 1-2 scenes, the rest will be easier. So, yay for that.

Sommer! Oh my heavens, YES! You are the queen of great ideas! And thank goodness I know you so I can get in on them!

Coffeeshop Confessions:

Usually, a pressing deadline works well for me (hence, NaNo). This week, however, it's been killing me. I had ALL DAY to write yesterday, but I just couldn't get anything out. I thought maybe I was still super tired, so I slept for an hour. Thought maybe it was because my house was a mess, so I at least loaded the dishwasher. I tried and tried to sit down and push something out, but nothing came.

It was one of the most frustrating nights of writing I've had in a long time.

So, today's a new day. And I have this awesome "5 hour Epic Music Mega Mix" from Youtube (search for it--it's AWESOME!). I have one page of new words down. It's going VERY slow, but I have a Claudie in my head yelling at me to keep fighting and don't give in. (BTW: Claudie, you were in my DREAM last night, that's how much I've been thinking about writing and not giving in to this deadline!)

I'm writing a scene in past perfect tense, and I'm trying to focus but instead, I'm thinking of the huge convo I had with Sommer and Brenda in the Vegas casino about PPT vs past tense.

Okay, writing break is over. Back I go...

trixie wrote:Coffeeshop Confessions:

I'm writing a scene in past perfect tense, and I'm trying to focus but instead, I'm thinking of the huge convo I had with Sommer and Brenda in the Vegas casino about PPT vs past tense.

Okay, writing break is over. Back I go...

OMG.

Last night I had this dream I was wearing a prom dress and I was at work and my boss told me I had some massive project to work on and finish that day and it involved using all the different writing tenses and I started panicking because I suddenly couldn't remember all the different tenses, let alone use them in this project. And then when I sat down to work (Still wearing the pink prom dress! I LOVE DREAM LOGIC!) I discovered someone had slipped a cheat sheet of all the tenses into my binder and I was absolutely sure Claudie and Tricia were involved in getting it to me.

Anyone else hear the Twilight Zone music in their head?

Sommer! CRAZY! We must be on the same writerly wavelength or something.

1100 new words. Even though I'm in a good groove, I'm trying out the idea of ending at a place where you know there's more to write so when you return, you can jump right back in. Yeah, that's the plan.

But for now, I have to mow the lawn before my neighbors protest. It's been a while and my house is rapidly approaching the status of "THAT" house on the block, which comes complete with discrete head nods, knowing looks, and frowns of judgement.

trixie wrote:I'm writing a scene in past perfect tense, and I'm trying to focus but instead, I'm thinking of the huge convo I had with Sommer and Brenda in the Vegas casino about PPT vs past tense.

HAHA!! I still count that as one of the geekiest/nerdiest moments of my life and I loved every second on it. Brian, also, still chuckles heartily when it's brought up in conversation.

So, goal update - I am behind-ish. I have the first 48K of this book "finished" though it's still a little too long. That's the good news. The bad news is that I still have to add a good 15K to the second half of the book, which requires a lot of character development and deep thinking kind of work. With only one week left I don't think I'll have time, but I'll do my best to get back in the writing habit tomorrow and crank this sucker out.

By the way, Sommer, I think this coffee shop thing was about the best idea ever. I love being able to just jump in here and listen to whatever is on peoples' minds. It's fantastic. I hope we'll be doing this again!