Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 2

Uncle Jim, I recieved "Land of Mist and Snow," and have read the first 32 pages (in one sitting, and when you have a six-month-old that can be quite a feat). I'm really enjoying it so far, which I'd expected. I'll let you know when I get finished with it.

I pre-ordered The Apocalypse Door using Amazon.com.

Their new system is very confusing. I wasn't at all sure whether I had placed an order or not, had to go back in and check. Most of the screens have no "sign out" flag. It's quite difficult to get out again. Weird. Nowhere I could see to contact them.

I actually knew of the Apocalypse Door before I joined this site. I worked at a department store for several years before I came to college and we sold it there, it was on the prestigious "Best Sellers" display at the end of the aisle and I picked it up in there.

When I joined this site and saw this thread a couple weeks ago I thought "who is James Macdonald and what gives him the knowledge to teach writing?". Then I saw his referance to that novel and went "wait a minute...I know that book....he's THAT James Macdonald?!". Hahaha.

You really do us an honor by spending your time on this site helping us all.

For those of you who have read some of Uncle Jim's books, which one(s) do you most recommend? (feel free to comment as well UJ)

I love all my children equally.

Let's not get derailed from talking about writing in general.

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Yikes Calli!

This one won't be ready for that for at least a little while. I need to figure out a strategy for going forward from here though.

Uncle Jim has told others, put it in a drawer and let it cook for a while. I think he recommends a month or more. Then start your revision with fresh eyes. It definitely pays to give your brain a vacation from it for some period. In the meantime, write something else. It can be another novel, a short story, grocery list, memoirs, anything. Hope this helps.

Yep, putting the work in the desk drawer would be the best thing to do. A month or six weeks while you work on something else would be great.

Then rewrite and edit the fudge out of it. Only when you've gone as far as you can go on your own should you take to your beta readers or your workshop.

My problem with this piece of advice is that I lose my enthusiasm for the work the longer I don't look at it.

Like I understand the need for working on new and different things, but once I put something aside for a long period of time, when I go back to it I forget what it was that I wanted to evoke with the story. I feel disjointed from it and wonder how to get back into it.

Soloartist, somewhere in the forums is a thread to help you find a beta reader. Some are very willing to read through very rough drafts and offer great insights. I would start there.


Except that I just realized Uncle Jim advised against this in a post I hadn't seen. Oooopsie!

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Amb the Creative said:

My problem with this piece of advice is that I lose my enthusiasm for the work the longer I don't look at it.

Like I understand the need for working on new and different things, but once I put something aside for a long period of time, when I go back to it I forget what it was that I wanted to evoke with the story. I feel disjointed from it and wonder how to get back into it.

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I have this problem too. I find it's quite easy to lose the finer threads of the plot, even after a short period (like a week or two).

Amb the Creative said:

My problem with this piece of advice is that I lose my enthusiasm for the work the longer I don't look at it.

Like I understand the need for working on new and different things, but once I put something aside for a long period of time, when I go back to it I forget what it was that I wanted to evoke with the story. I feel disjointed from it and wonder how to get back into it.

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If you the author can't get into it after a mere few months away, how can you expect readers who know nothing of either you or the story to show interest?

EDIT: To clarify, I don't mean any offense. I just feel that if you can't get into a story YOU'VE WRITTEN by rereading it, then maybe you're not writing the right stories to begin with.

Izz said:

Have you tried jotting a few notes down as to where you want the plot to go, or what sort of emotions you want to conjure up in the reader's mind?

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Speaking for myself: Yes, of course, I have keynotes in a spreadsheet for each chapter. The main plot and sub-plot elements are not a problem. It's the finer threads that catch me out. Like when adding something in the middle, remembering what exactly my MCs know at this point in the story. Is this before or after some minor event? That sort of thing. In my current WIP, my MC's car is off the road for a few chapters. Adding stuff in here, I need to be careful not to have him drive anywhere for those chapters. If I come back to it later, I might decide to move some of the action from those chapters and place it earlier of later. Then the question could arise: why isn't he using his car?

Krintar said:

If you the author can't get into it after a mere few months away, how can you expect readers who know nothing of either you or the story to show interest?

EDIT: To clarify, I don't mean any offense. I just feel that if you can't get into a story YOU'VE WRITTEN by rereading it, then maybe you're not writing the right stories to begin with.

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That's good stuff, Krintar. I am printing that post and tacking it to the wall by my computer to remind myself to think of how the readers will recieve what I write.

Krintar said:

If you the author can't get into it after a mere few months away, how can you expect readers who know nothing of either you or the story to show interest?

EDIT: To clarify, I don't mean any offense. I just feel that if you can't get into a story YOU'VE WRITTEN by rereading it, then maybe you're not writing the right stories to begin with.

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I can LOVE a story to DEATH, but even at the second reread cause I know what's going to happen, I find myself falling asleep. And I'm not talking about my own stories.

Amb the Creative said:

I can LOVE a story to DEATH, but even at the second reread cause I know what's going to happen, I find myself falling asleep. And I'm not talking about my own stories.

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If you lose all interest in a story after one pass, writing is probably not for you - Writing Is Rewriting after all. And if your attitude to your own work is not the aforementioned, then why make a comment like that? It's irrelevant.

"Writing is probably not for you" is rarely a justifiable sentence, especially when it's short for "If the things that work for me don't work for you as a writer, then writing is probably not for you."

Every writer should be a reader, but not every writer is a rereader. Seems like I've heard lots of writer friends say that they don't enjoy rereading. And yet they are writers.

Amb: Since I am a rereader, I have no good advice to offer the non-rereader on how to make revisions, or revisions after a manuscript's had some drawer-time, more feasible. But I'm sure there must be, because many successful writers are non-rereaders after all.

When I pull a manuscript out of the drawer after it's been sitting there awhile, sometimes I find I come to it as though it were a story someone else wrote that I read a long time ago. I no longer have access to the thoughts I had when I was writing it, but then they can't get in my way anymore either. Rewriting it at this point means it will become something different from what I intended when I wrote it--and generally that's a good thing.

When you do succeed at a rewrite, what worked for you?