Day 13 Warning: This post contains swear words
Breathed deeply. Did some soul searching on this WIP. Revised part of a chapter in book two that I've been working on all week. Went to a friend's house. Fortunately, she is one my former writing professors. Whined and wined. She listened as I talked myself out of my writerly hole. Drank more wine. Unfortunately, she's a well-published short story writer working on her first novel and has her own novel-writing woes. Drank more wine. Here I am.
April: I've had wine. Your advice was hard to read, and *warning, I'm about to swear* so motherfucking helpful! All the thank yous I have to give. I was trying so hard to get it done, I wasn't trying hard enough to get it right. I'm not quite ready to give up on this project, so the something new, as you suggested, I've decided, is book two. Which may be a huge mistake, but I'm building on what I learned writing the first book. My background is in short fiction. My master's program focused on character-driven short stories and offered exactly zero guidance for long form writing. So I figured I had this character shit down. Nope. For my first novel writing effort, I wrote a discover draft. Get it done, go back and fix what's wrong. I prefer drafting to revising. But hey, the revision process was not the slog I feared (despite my constant complaining). During the second draft, I found some plot holes and fixed them, found some inconsistencies and fixed them, found some repetitive scenes...you get the idea. Third draft, more fixing, and set it aside. I'll likely revise it twice more before calling it done. For the second book, currently 46,175 words, I'm applying what I learned writing the first book. I've given myself a year to finish these four books. And at the end of that year, good or bad, I'll have written four books. They may be garbage, but they won't have been a waste. I put in a request at the library for the Maass book. Thanks for the suggestion. You're the best!!!
Pterofan: You've got all the word counts! Thank you so much for the advice. No, I don't have any
trusted betas. My former writing program classmates, unfortunately, are not the audience for a 100K word m/m historical gothic romance. Now, if I were writing plotless, high-minded, experimental prose...
I sometimes wish I still loved writing plotless, high-minded, experimental prose. Alas, I prefer to write boys in love. Gush.
Daniel: So sorry about your date. Sending you all the good vibes. Vincit qui se vincit, indeed.
Cindyt: Great word count.
Layla: Thank you for the kind words.
Heatherless: Organizing is writing!
Magnus: Boo to meh! I hate that feeling. Glad you got to read. Thank you for the book suggestion. I'll check it out.
Apologies for the wordiness, everybody. And, as always, thanks for the hand-holding. It means the world.
I'm so happy for you. Crying with you.
