Well I’ve pretty well gotten back on track with my goals for the month. This week I revised 6 more chapters of my novel and it’s coming along very well. I’ve also spent some time working on the first draft of my next novel.
When I’m beginning a new draft of something I usually start by basically freewriting and just exploring the story. I write down whatever pops into my head and let the story take life. I generally only begin with a very general idea of who the main characters are and what the major plot points are going to be. I find this a really useful way of beginning because I don’t hold myself back by worrying about whether or not this is actually any good. And then I probably won’t ever even look at that first draft again. Instead, I’ll just use what’s now in my head, the information that I now have about the story, and rewrite the entire thing from page one. Much of what I write in that first draft won’t even happen in the next draft, and the few things that do will probably be dramatically different, but it’s okay because it’s through the process of writing that first draft that I figure out what the story really is.
So I’ve written the first few pages of my next novel and I’m pretty excited about it. I think starting next month I’ll add working on that into my goals so that I can try and have a complete draft ready to start rewriting by the time I’m finished with my thesis. Completely as a fun side project, too, I’ve been working on a sequel to the children’s book I’m currently trying to find an agent for.
Otherwise, I’ve spent only 3.5 more hours this week on short stories and I haven’t sent out any more story submissions or agent queries. I also received two more agent rejections (but not from the agent who requested the full manuscript. I haven’t heard back from her yet).
So, for the month I’m at:
- 10 out of 19 novel chapters revised
- 11 out of 20 hours spent on short stories
- 4 out of 10 submissions sent to journals
- 14 out of as many as possible queries sent to agents (and I've recieved 4 rejections; 1 manuscript request)
1 comment:
You're definitely right about how interesting it is getting a glimpse at others' processes. I like to completely rewrite my second draft, but I still read over what I wrote before and use that as the basis of moving on. I try to be as open to cutting out whole chunks that aren't working or adding in brand new stuff, but not even looking at it again is something else. That's pretty impressive that you're willing to do all that work with the understanding that it's basically your initial way of figuring out the story in your head.
Post a Comment