Wednesday, February 29, 2012

What's Next?

A short study of the Novel. I have read quite a few novels in my day, of multiple genres. I have a BS in English with a concentration in Fiction Writing. While we studied novels from a writer's perspective, as an undergrad we did not get into the actual writing of a novel. I realized, as I began to embark on the journey of editing my own novel, two things. First, I had not edited any piece of fiction in a while. Second, I had never attempted at editing a novel. With that in mind, I tentatively looked through the writer's section of the book store. I always look at that area with caution because it would be easy to get caught up reading about 'writing your next number one best seller' and never actually sitting down to write it. I found a couple books on novel writing, and after sitting down to check them over (yes in a chair), I decided on the Complete Handbook of Novel Writing from the Editors of Writer's Digest.

The Complete Handbook Of Novel Writing: Everything You Need to Know About Creating & Selling Your Work (Writers Digest)

It's comprised of short chapters by published authors dealing with everything about the Novel from plot to publishing. I'm using it to help me put together an editing checklist, which once I finish, I will share with anyone who cares to view/use it. Most of what I've read in the book, I know on some level. However, it helps to be reminded what works and what doesn't. My plan to to take no more than a week to read through the book and get my checklist put together, so I can get on to the important stuff: editing!


Friday, February 24, 2012

It's done!

Yes, you read that right. The first draft of my first novel is complete! It's taken a good long time, but I did it! I hardly know what to do next. Well, that's not entirely true. Now, I need to make it make sense. I know that I shifted tense a few places and there are dates that are off. In fact, at one point dates were confusing me so much, that I stopped worrying about them all together because it was taking away from actually writing. Now is the time to fix all of that. I am sure there are a few places I was stuck that I left incomplete in order to move on. However, this is all really a minor detail when you consider that: I WROTE MY FIRST NOVEL! At 61,211 words and 235 pages, it's ready to be worked on, torn apart, put back together and made pretty.

What's next immediately?
1. I need to update my outline with the last 70 pages I wrote.
2. Read through it (On my Kindle Fire!)
-fix dates/get timeline coherent
-first round of editing

<3 Happy Editing<3

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Bookcase

In case anyone out there wonders, I have a thing for books. Even though my wonderful husband got me a Kindle Fire for my birthday, and I love it, it doesn't mean I won't buy as many tangible books. If anything it will simply mean that I will have MORE books altogether. We had actually just about filled our two bookcases we had (my goal is to someday have a fairly extensive home library). I had actually been setting books on top of other books or in front of them on our existing bookcases, not sure what I was looking for. Then out of no particular reason, other than perhaps curiosity, I entered The Plunderbox, an antique store in Midway, Georgia. As with many instances where I find the perfect thing, it came at the end of my perusing the store. Behold, my (new to me) old double circle bookcase:
Meet the new home of my Science Fiction and Fantasy novels.

In other news, also exciting, my novel is officially over 200 words and drawing to a close soon (i think). I extended my goal of getting draft one complete by the time Rob returns home.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Kindle Fire ignites spark!

No pun intended. Ok, maybe it was slightly intended. It is however, true. I got my birthday present in the mail from my wonderful husband today! (While a couple weeks early, I couldn't wait to open it). It's really cool. I have already downloaded a bunch of free (waste of time) apps! I got Angry Birds, Stupid Zombies, flicking paper balls into a virtual trash can, and fruit ninjas. I downloaded Jane Eyre for free as well. But the spark came when I transferred a section of my novel in progress to it, just to see how it's formats it. Lets just say I about cried when I saw it looking like a book, which ignited the spark to write, so I can finish it, so I can read it on my kindle and start editing it! I wrote: 2121 words tonight! Go me! I can finally see the light at the end of this tunnel. I know where I'm going and in about 15 pages or 4,000 words I should have a completed first draft to work with! I know that there will be a lot of adding to it, taking away from it, and refining it after that. BUT, I am so ready to start that process!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Over 50,000 words

52,716 to be exact! I can honestly say writing this book seems to get easier the longer I work on it. I am beginning to truly know my characters and how they think. I know what they want, how they feel, and what they will do. It's interesting to me how I started with one main female character as my center, and have now branched out to understand the thoughts and feelings of other main characters. I also have traveled down lines of quite a few minor characters that make my main characters who they are.

I am excited to say that I now know where the part that I am working on will go and how it will fit with everything else. I don't think that everyone goes about writing a novel this way, but it seems to be working for me. I started in the middle. Wrote the end. Then I went back to the beginning. Now I am writing the three-quarter spot. Crazy.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Anyway.

The title post is in honor of the book I am currently reading: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I picked it up at the grocery store last week. I had seen previews for the movie and was interested in seeing it. I had no idea it was a book. As a rule, books are better than movies. So I did the obvious Tina thing and decided to read the book before I watched the movie. (Not that I will go to see it in theaters by myself so I will probably wait until it comes out on DVD or On Demand). However, the "not going to the movies by myself" rule may be off when The Hunger Games comes out. Oddly, I didn't follow that rule (read the book before watching the movie for Twilight or New Moon. In my defense, I wasn't sure about them. I was teaching high school and once I realized all the girls were ga ga over it, I was concerned it might be teeny bopper. Obviously I changed my mind. I saw the preview for New Moon, had to watch it. So I bought the Twilight DVD, saw New Moon in the theater, then got all the books for Christmas and read them straight through. The books are better than the movies. Movies just can't have as much info. There isn't enough time.

Anyway. (haha) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is really good so far. I love the narrator. He is quirky, but realistic. He is full of dimensions and the author doesn't spell them all out, which keeps him interesting. Today I keep going back and forth between reading that book and writing my book. It's actually going well. I have written over 1,000 words already today without really trying. I give partial credit to the coffee, but most credit to my brain and cold fingers.

Until, next time!