A new beginning
December 1st 2008 08:59
I have started my novel again. After many days of soul searching and looking off into space and being asked what i was thinking and having to shake my head and say 'nothing' has finished. On Saturday night I began writing my novel again.
It is a hard thing to do, begin again. To start from page one word one but I have found that funnily enough that once I accepted that I needed to start again from scratch and looked at the realities of what starting from scratch meant I found that I was able to put a fresh face on the work. I still have a tough slog ahead of me but at least I can incorporate what I learned from the previous attempt at the book into this new novel.
I haven't been brave enough to scrap what I have done before. I still have all the work that I had done before. I am still setting my novel in the same world and telling a story of the same events and using the same characters.
I have just added a new POV character and changed what another character is doing.
It makes a hell of a difference.
So now I am in the slog of writing each day.
I am not committing hours of my time to it.
Just 2 pages a day. That is it. Nothing more complicated than that. I am writing 2 pages a day and not stopping to make things pretty. That is for the second draft.
Lawrence Watt Evans has a poem that sums up first drafts.
He was kind enough to give me permission to reprint it here
The second Draft
by Lawrence Watt Evans(website link)
First write it down from fore to aft;
Fix errors in the second draft!
Made a slip that looks quite daft?
Just fix it in the second draft!
When scenes go spinning, all askew
And heroes die just halfway through
There's just one thing for you to do --
Fix it in Draft Number Two!
Death scenes where the reader laughed --
Fix them in the second draft!
Silly typos by the raft --
Fix them in the second draft!
Armies all by morons staffed --
Fix them in the second draft!
Half the art and all the craft
Are added in the second draft!
(But be sure, when that draft is done
That it reads as well as Number One!)
Copyright 1992 by Lawrence Watt Evans
All rights reserved
No reproduction permitted without permission of the author
This is a simple piece of advice that I have used last time and still remains.
So I am going to be adding a new part to my blog. With each post I will be posting a word count so that I can share my journey with the rest of you.
So to begin.
Novel Update
As of yesterday (30/11/08)
Pages 5
Word Count 1755
Current Chapter 2
Read of the Week
On Writing - Steven King
This book is quoted by more writers than any other. It is a memoir and a great book on the craft of writing. If you have any interest in writing you need to read this book.
Listen of the Week
I have replaced View of the Week with this.
I should be writing A podcast that discusses writing essential listening for wanna be writers.
Link Subscribe to this great Podcast.
Game of the week
Any Lego game for your platform. These games Lego Star Wars, Lego Batman and Lego Inidiana Jones are well worth your time. Awesome.
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