I was just revisiting some of the earlier chapters of my NaNoWriMo novel this morning(which I haven't done this whole month), well, to be exact it was middle chapters I think when I felt like crying purple tears. It's a wordy mess with extra purple cream topping. I was kind of horrified.
Purple tears!!!
- Thread starter skylessbird2218
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I have no words words of wisdom, but a "I'm sorry". I hope things will get better.
A fun fact to cheer you up: In a MG short story I wrote, the villain cried purple tears because she was really a grape juice monster. Are you a grape juice monster?
A fun fact to cheer you up: In a MG short story I wrote, the villain cried purple tears because she was really a grape juice monster. Are you a grape juice monster?
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Oooh, never look back at your NaNo novel! Not until December. 
I feel your pain, skylessbird. I will say I think of NaNo as the early stages of throwing clay: if you get out of it with a lump of more-or-less novel-sized goop and a vague idea of what you want to sculpt it into, you're in good shape.
One of my favorite writer anecdotes is from Dennis Lehane (Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, among others). I heard him speak a little after his career took off big. He said when would get full of himself, his friends would call him and read sections of his first drafts into his answering machine.
First drafts are often awful because they are first drafts. You can't fix the book in revisions if you don't have a book to begin with.
I feel your pain, skylessbird. I will say I think of NaNo as the early stages of throwing clay: if you get out of it with a lump of more-or-less novel-sized goop and a vague idea of what you want to sculpt it into, you're in good shape.
One of my favorite writer anecdotes is from Dennis Lehane (Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, among others). I heard him speak a little after his career took off big. He said when would get full of himself, his friends would call him and read sections of his first drafts into his answering machine.
First drafts are often awful because they are first drafts. You can't fix the book in revisions if you don't have a book to begin with.
In a MG short story I wrote, the villain cried purple tears because she was really a grape juice monster. Are you a grape juice monster?
No, I'm the purple prose monster.
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Thanks, lizmonster, I wouldn't have checked if I wasn't putting it up for another challenge at a site(royal road). I wrote the whole thing without separating them chapters or anything, so I wanted to divide them up before I put it out there.Oooh, never look back at your NaNo novel! Not until December.
I feel your pain, skylessbird. I will say I think of NaNo as the early stages of throwing clay: if you get out of it with a lump of more-or-less novel-sized goop and a vague idea of what you want to sculpt it into, you're in good shape.
I was discovery writing the whole thing(I don't know why I don't like the word pantsing), and the strangest thing is, although the earlier sections are still bad, compared to the middle ones they are still golden.
My local writer's group (Pikes Peak Writers) hosts a regular event called: Write Drunk, Edit Sober. The idea is that it's sometimes easier to get ideas quickly (and haphazardly) down on paper then go back and fix it later. Could that work for you?
This can easily happen when you're slamming words onto the page, trying to reach a wordcount on a deadline. Give it a little time and distance. Then, when you are ready, go back and make notes. Figure out how sound your structure is. Look at your plot and your arcs. Note whatever repairs or revisions it would take to make the structure solid.
If you need major structural work, you start there (and don't be afraid to start the novel over). If the overall structure is sound enough, and you like the characters, move on to the scene level. Make sure each scene has its own appropriate arc, etc. This can be a time to do some slashing to improve tension and pacing. Get the scene working structurally.
Only then, move on to the sentence level, and start scraping off the purple cream. What you don't want to do is scrape it off first, because when you've done that, and if you find major problems with the supporting structure underneath, you're more likely to trunk the whole thing. On the other hand, if you attend to the basics first, you probably won't be so bothered when it's time to repaint.
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Phew, I feel your pain. I have a very strict "Write and do NOT look back!" while drafting, for this very reason. I've made the mistake of looking back a couple of times before I finish the draft, and have always ended up abandoning it, because god, what a mess. No way I'm dealing with that until it's finished and I'm in editing mode!
