Where are you? (in your novel)

TellMeAStory said:

When Lily graduated nursing school, the ceremony ended with "Go forth and perform to your utmost."

Now it's a few years on, and I need her to receive more cynical advice. Something like "Persevere and don't get caught"--but maybe not quite that cynical.

Been trying for days to come up with the right--concise--phrasing.

No luck so far.

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I don't have the the phrasing you need. 'Ask forgiveness not permission' is a pretty common one.

But I can tell you a number of anecdotes of nurses doing just that, asking forgiveness not permission. These were orders and actions that were well within the nursing scope of practice.

Thanks, MaeZe.

I forgot to add that the story happens in 1938, and the advising older nurse is strung out on benzedrine or ill from having been strung out on benzedrine for years, or for some other reason. Lily, however, blames the older nurse's disturbing characteristics on "misuse of benzedrine." (In those days, benzedrine was an inhaled decongestant, but nurses soon discovered you could remove the medicated wick from the dispensing gizmo, roll it into a ball, and take it like a pill.)

ANYWAY, I'm hoping to come up with a phrase that doesn't make immediate sense, allowing Lily to think "what the heck did she mean by that?" but that could be interpreted as "ask forgiveness not permission" only not so clearly.

Still working...

I'm at a crossroads. I thought I had finished my first draft, and started working on a second book, but I'm thinking more and more that I'm actually still writing the first and should continue it instead of making it a second. Does that make sense?

Halfway through first editing round. I always mean to reduce the word count, but it alway grows.

WriteMinded said:

I'm also digging through a first draft. I think I need to borrow your machete.

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WriteMinded said:

Editing a chapter with a borrowed machete. I don't have a machete of my own, because I so loathe cutting anything that it wouldn't be worth the trip to the store to buy one.

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WriteMinded said:

Halfway through first editing round. I always mean to reduce the word count, but it alway grows.

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Glad to see the machete is kinda sorta working out for you. Yeah, funny thing about how editing doesn't always reduce word count...*cough* I'll probably end up in about the same word count space by the time I'm done refining verbiage + adding additional minor scenes where I glossed over some of the flash-bang.

Who would've thought people wouldn't be happy about me glossing over blowing holes in a pirate ship? Whoopsie...

I'm also slowly terrorizing the novella.

I've been on a bit of a hiatus though, as I was on a trip for over a week, and am now trying to decompress before I start back up at work next week. (Boo, day job that pays the bills, boo hiss...)

Got to the end, decided the son should have been a daughter all along. Extremely loud sighing ensued.

Got a good close-to-final draft of the latest fantasy novel. Satisfied with it, will get onto line edits and that sort of thing in a bit. Just a little tired of looking at it at the moment! So I am at the outlining and blocking out of ideas stage on the next one, a murder mystery set at a folk music festival.

I've started to start my story, so I now feel justified in posting!

I've done a lot of outlining and working out the lumps and knots in the story (it doesn't make sense if secondary bad guy sees the heroine there! But I've not got a better way of making it work right now. So, Onwards!)

Also, I've started writing the opening scene, which has taken a lot of revision. I didn't feel I could get going until it started at the right point for some reason. I've been gradually paring away lots of stuff that was all scene-setting and back-storyish, and was basically getting in the way of the actual beginning.

three scenes away from finishing a first draft!

I'm 12k into a new contemporary story! Eeek! I know how most of it should pan out... though I won't ever fully leave the pantsing lifestyle

Just finished the final draft.

Book 1: Rewrite complete, first draft of rewrite just completed. Put to a side for breathing space.

Book 2: Having its reread before further edits.

Changing chapter 11 from third-person into first-person. Going back to earlier chapters and editing them. Going to the end to finally write an actual ending, and then somewhere along the way consoling myself on peanut M&M's.

Today I wrote the first draft of my damp squib ending. Still not entirely sure whether it's entirely satisfying as an end...or even if it will end this WIP or it's sequel. That will depend on how long the middle bit ends up.

The pantsing continues...

The first draft is done! It's a mess! But it's done!

Finished the first draft of a scene I've been trying to write for months and it ended up a mishmash of notes and garbled sections that didn't flow. It's ridiculously long and will need masses of editing with a small nuclear device but it feels good to have finally got the whole thing written out and in some sort of order finally.

My movie-star character, son of my main character, gets a new contract after 10 years of not doing a movie.

Stuck. Have just finished re-write of book 1 and set it aside to 'rest' before editing. Come back to book 2 and now rewriting in 3rd POV rather than 1st and debating whether to stick with me swapping timeline or try chronological. I was set on going chronological when my latest beta came back to me and said she rather like the swapping of the times as it added depth. Now stuck.

I'm in the dead centre of my novel, rewriting a pivotal scene for the THIRD time. No tension. Still not working. Can't move on until I get some kind of working draft of it, because that's my stupid process. URGH!

Don't mind me, I'm just stuck in the mushy-middle doldrums and using AW to procrastinate...

DimelioraL said:

Stuck. Have just finished re-write of book 1 and set it aside to 'rest' before editing. Come back to book 2 and now rewriting in 3rd POV rather than 1st and debating whether to stick with me swapping timeline or try chronological. I was set on going chronological when my latest beta came back to me and said she rather like the swapping of the times as it added depth. Now stuck.

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Nah, you aren't stuck. You just have to make a decision. Nobody appreciates betas more than I do, but in the end we have to decide for ourselves. Do you think jumping times adds depth to your story? or chaos? or nothing?

I prefer chronological order when I'm reading. I just don't like being jerked this way and that and back again unless it is absolutely necessary. Thus far my books have all been written in chronological order. As yet there has been no specific reason for me to take a more convoluted route, but who knows what tomorrow holds?

For the last few months, I'd been biding my time, waiting for edits from the publisher. I took the opportunity to work on and submit shorter pieces and organize files.

The edits arrived this week, and now it's time to dive in to the novel one...last...time....

See you on the other side.

Tip-toeing my way into Lily's Volume #4.

Oakland, California, 1939: Lily meets (some of) the DiMaggio family--yes, that real DiMaggio of baseball fame, but a fictional branch of his family. A cousin, his wife, their little son, and somewhat later, the cousin's sister--all of them open and friendly, instantly accepting Lily who has been lonely and friendless for almost all of Volume #3. Poor kid.

Oakland will be different for her...but too different?

I'm working on what I believe will be the last chapter but since finding this site I have spent so much time browsing these forums that I am making little progress.

Finished MS; re-finished MS; then again is it really? I think I'm in need a beta reader or something- I have no idea what to do next. So far it has had one reject, read with interest but pass, and about ten no reply and I'm two weeks in. I still need to finish the second book but what's the point if the first isn't good enough. Any who second MS VaLee has committed murder taking the life of a mortal opening the flood gates to a blood lust she may not be able to control.

Starting another round of edits tomorrow.