--considering circumstances--was probably for the best.

[aamcnamara]

151 / 350

This morning, it was a "my novel is terrible!" day. Then I thought about how much progress I have made so far on learning to write, and how much more time I have to make progress in (save the possibility of a Tragically Young Death), and particularly about how not being terrible isn't really something I'm working toward on this project...

...sometimes, the answer to "my novel is terrible!" is "Yep. But that's okay."

(And then you keep typing.)

It also helped that part of what I wrote today was going back to add to a scene a couple of chapters ago, pursuant to some thinking I did yesterday in the car. It's a sort of pivotal chapter, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that I keep thinking of other things it can be doing, other things I want to stick in around the corners. But at any rate, it was pretty easy--I knew everything already, down to tone of the scene. (I'm considering adding another scene there, but have to work out the exact dynamics before I actually write it.)

Then I went back and kept working on adding new scenes and chapters. I already know what happens in the rest of this scene/the next one, but it might behoove me to just go read something for the evening and then I'll know where I'm starting from tomorrow.


Specifically, here are some things that I am doing as I write this novel that I haven't done before (some of which have been mentioned in other posts):
- thinking in scenes (Scrivener emphasizes this, but I was doing it before I downloaded Scrivener; the program just makes it easier to look at it this way on the computer)
- knowing what the pivotal chapters are
- outlining the novel ahead of time (and re-outlining halfway through, to boot)
- keeping a running outline as-I-go of what actually ended up getting written
- revisions becoming clearer and clearer in my head as I write
-- sometimes this manifests as leaving a note of "I will fix this in revisions" and moving on (particularly in one place, where there was a scene I'd been anticipating writing since I got the idea for the novel in the first place--I wrote the scene I had been anticipating, not the scene that went in that place in this specific novel)
-- sometimes just knowing "okay, so I'll need a lot of index cards (good thing I have a lot of index cards) and a lot of colors of markers, and then I'll color-code" and that feeling right, knowing how I'll do that and how it'll work out
-- and sometimes, knowing "this is where I'll go to do setting research, and then this is sort of how these scenes will have to be revised pursuant to what I find there"
- knowing when a scene needs to be in the middle of the next chapter instead of the end of this one

...basically? I am doing a lot of things as I write this novel that I always associated with "people who have a better handle on this whole writing/revising/structure-of-a-novel thing better than I do". And they're just things that are happening as I keep writing on.

Maybe it's the practicing-writing-novels that's doing it. Maybe it's all the information I soaked up at Odyssey two years ago finally just oozing out of me again. (--I'll stop the sponge metaphor now.) Maybe it's... well, you know. There are a lot of options. (Conventions. Knowing awesome people. Thinking about writing. I haven't really learned anything, it's just this particular novel that's magic. Et cetera.)

Either way, those are all things I intend to keep doing. So: good job, brain. Keep up the good work. We may still be terrible, but we're getting better. (And will still be terrible. But, all together now, that's okay.)

Comments

[aliseadae]

Yay learning! Eventually I might try to learn Novels. I don't think one ever fully learns any sort of writing. I've learnt Poems a bit and I've been trying Short Stories and one day I will try Novels. But even if one has learnt one or the other or Flash Fiction or Novellas or whatever one can still learn. Yay learning! I like noticing when I've learnt without even noticing that I have.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Oh definitely. Learning is a Lifelong Process, and now I will take off my pompous hat. But yes. Some things transfer over, but other things markedly do not.

[aliseadae]

I wasn't trying to wear a pompous hat, I was just having fun capitalizing.

Mm. Poems and short stories don't match up too neatly. I have no idea what novels are like. Someday I'll figure that out.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

I was not trying to accuse you of wearing a pompous hat. I am in favor of random capitalization! Capitalizing "Learning is a Lifelong Process" just made me feel like I was wearing a pompous hat.

Someday maybe I will write poetry again for real. I like poetry.

[aliseadae]

I suppose that is a somewhat pompous phrase.

Poetry is good.