State of the Me
May. 13th, 2009 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clarentineLook, Ma – actual content!
I was talking with my crit partner,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
corrinalaw, recently about the revisions underway for Kith and Kin, and I realized something about what I’m going to laughingly call my Process. I take a look at a scene I need to revise. I think about the plot questions raised therein, about how the characters’ actions affect said plot…and then I take a step back from the question and instead query the characters themselves. Would A really make that decision? Would B react in that fashion to C’s exclamation?
I choose to look at this as a maturing of me as a writer – that I have enough maturity now to notice when I’m pushing the characters around as pawns instead of letting them tell their own story. It’s probably more noticeable with this book (this series of books) than other novels I might revise because the series Kith is a part of is really rather venerable; I’ve probably rewritten the book, from scratch, three or four times in the past 20 years. Yeah, that’s right. The series, as conceived, is at least that old. And in that time, let me tell you, I’ve grown as a writer and in my perception of what makes good writing.
(The series that Kith’s a part of…hmm. If this thing ever sells, I’m going to need a series title.)
***
The other thing I’m noticing lately is that my overbooked state is leading to focus problems—as in, stare at the sentences and paragraphs, stare at my notes about what needs to fixed, stare some more…. The only cure I’m finding for this is to quantify, in words, what the scene is supposed to be accomplishing, what my protag’s goal is in the scene, what the scene antag’s goal is in the scene. It has to be in words because otherwise my very, very visual-and-symbol oriented brain would just keep shunting symbols around in the front room of my mind and I’d never have a single word to put to paper.
This is also the state where I realize I need to write down all of the looming deadlines and expectations – again, in actual words – and start crossing things off as I accomplish them. It’s amazing how freeing those crossed-out entries can be. If I’m really overbooked, I’ll break down each obligation into its component parts to get the most bang from each tiny accomplishment. I’ll take all the help I can get when things get that bad.
***
And you know it’s bad when my brain wants to read the newspaper instead of think about the book.
***
We went camping this weekend up in Shenandoah National Park. I may be the only mother of my acquaintance who thinks this is an absolutely perfect way to spend Mother’s Day weekend. Tents, hiking boots, campfires. Wind whistling like an ocean through the treetops. Bears (okay, my son saw them this time, but last time we were up here it was my turn). And fresh air, and blue sky, and bird song, and a general respite from the constant pressure of noise that is the suburban landscape. Ah, heaven.
We’re going again over Father’s Day weekend. *g*
I was talking with my crit partner,
corrinalaw, recently about the revisions underway for Kith and Kin, and I realized something about what I’m going to laughingly call my Process. I take a look at a scene I need to revise. I think about the plot questions raised therein, about how the characters’ actions affect said plot…and then I take a step back from the question and instead query the characters themselves. Would A really make that decision? Would B react in that fashion to C’s exclamation? I choose to look at this as a maturing of me as a writer – that I have enough maturity now to notice when I’m pushing the characters around as pawns instead of letting them tell their own story. It’s probably more noticeable with this book (this series of books) than other novels I might revise because the series Kith is a part of is really rather venerable; I’ve probably rewritten the book, from scratch, three or four times in the past 20 years. Yeah, that’s right. The series, as conceived, is at least that old. And in that time, let me tell you, I’ve grown as a writer and in my perception of what makes good writing.
(The series that Kith’s a part of…hmm. If this thing ever sells, I’m going to need a series title.)
***
The other thing I’m noticing lately is that my overbooked state is leading to focus problems—as in, stare at the sentences and paragraphs, stare at my notes about what needs to fixed, stare some more…. The only cure I’m finding for this is to quantify, in words, what the scene is supposed to be accomplishing, what my protag’s goal is in the scene, what the scene antag’s goal is in the scene. It has to be in words because otherwise my very, very visual-and-symbol oriented brain would just keep shunting symbols around in the front room of my mind and I’d never have a single word to put to paper.
This is also the state where I realize I need to write down all of the looming deadlines and expectations – again, in actual words – and start crossing things off as I accomplish them. It’s amazing how freeing those crossed-out entries can be. If I’m really overbooked, I’ll break down each obligation into its component parts to get the most bang from each tiny accomplishment. I’ll take all the help I can get when things get that bad.
***
And you know it’s bad when my brain wants to read the newspaper instead of think about the book.
***
We went camping this weekend up in Shenandoah National Park. I may be the only mother of my acquaintance who thinks this is an absolutely perfect way to spend Mother’s Day weekend. Tents, hiking boots, campfires. Wind whistling like an ocean through the treetops. Bears (okay, my son saw them this time, but last time we were up here it was my turn). And fresh air, and blue sky, and bird song, and a general respite from the constant pressure of noise that is the suburban landscape. Ah, heaven.
We’re going again over Father’s Day weekend. *g*
