What a discouraging title! But it’s true. I set out with the goal of starting the second draft of Dim Vanities. Then, as November started shitting on me, I thought I’d at least get the 33 chapters read through and commented on. Well. That totally didn’t happen. I’ll admit it: there were more days in […]
novels
Nanowrimo: This feels different
It’s really weird not to be writing a feverish 50K this November. But I still think it’s a good decision to forgo a new zero draft this year – there’s so much work to do with Dim Vanities. Also, I’ve had a bit of a cold and am insanely tired, so yeah. Being merciful to […]
Nanowrimo: Preparing for the editing process
Firstly, let’s reveal the working title of the novel I’ll be editing this Nanowrimo: Dim Vanities. The name is from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem ‘Tamerlane’: Dim, vanities of dreams by night — And dimmer nothings which were real — (Shadows — and a more shadowy light!) Dim Vanities is the name I randomly came up […]
Nanowrimo: The Rebellion
So, it’s nearing the end of October, and we all know what that means: Nanowrimo is right around the corner! This will be my sixth year of doing Nano – even though this year, I’m not going to do it the traditional way. But November would feel empty without a big writing project! Thus, I’ve […]
Drastic changes: they can work
On Wednesday, I finally decided to do something I’ve never done before in my five years of Nanowrimo: to abandon the story I was working on and start a new one. Now, when I say ‘abandon’ I don’t mean entirely – no, I’ll probably work on the 31K of the first story eventually. Could work […]
Nanowrimo, day 1
Heyup. Have officially passed the word count for the first day of Nanowrimo 2012! Fifth Nano year, here I come. Exhausted from real-life things. But gosh, it felt rather awesome to escape into my own world for a while – to start something completely new, something utterly unknown! My Nanovel this year is high fantasy. […]
FINISHED FIRST DRAFT
IT’S CAPSLOCK TIME. I just finished the official first draft of DV. *FIREWORKS* It is rough, especially towards the end when I started having serious lack-of-time problems; it’s a first draft. But for the first time ever, I have revised a novel. I now have a novel-length narrative (279 1,5-spaced pages in Open Office; 13,2587 […]
On being a stubborn fool
Apologies for the lack of updates this month! I’ve mostly just been plodding along with my novel revision. And then I, previously unemployed and with plenty of time on my hands, was suddenly inundated by a strange event: getting a job. Well, two jobs, in fact. One of them a two-week temp gig (next week […]
The cutting pain
Cutting out characters is a terrible thing. And yet sometimes, it has to be done. This is one of the cruel truths of writing fiction. I finally started the proper edit/rewrite of my novel (DV for short) this weekend. I’m calling it the first draft, because really, my Nanowrimo efforts (from 2008 and 2011) made […]
Synopsis breakthrough
I woke up this morning at 7am to my upstairs neighbours continuing the renovation they were supposed to have finished during the summer. I think it’s Deeply Wrong to do anything loud that early on a Saturday morning, and hence felt/feel extremely resentful. Grouch grouch. I reluctantly got up a little before 8, after heroically […]