A.M. Jenkins's Blog, page 24

I was a bum all day yesterday, writing-wise. Today I woke...

I was a bum all day yesterday, writing-wise. Today I woke up and decided to go back and turn a fairly major character back into a minor one. Since I've gone through the Menelaus section and tried to figure out its arc, I'm now thinking that the story may be simpler and clearer if that character is downgraded. So...I'm going to have to cut a lot of stuff, all the way through. I'll start working on that today.

The reasons I'm thinking of cutting this character are:

1) The end of the Menelaus sect...

Today in the former GN I tried to develop one certain pie...

Today in the former GN I tried to develop one certain piece of a thread, but I think I went off on a mini-tangent and most of the day's work will need to be deleted. So that s*cks.

Yesterday was better--no big progress, but I went through a big hunk of the ms, straightening and tidying and making things flow more clearly.

Still, I would like to do some more work tonight so that I can feel I accomplished something today, but it's been one of those days, family-stuff-wise, so maybe I'll just blow...

Yesterday I only had about an hour to write, so I startin...

Yesterday I only had about an hour to write, so I starting fixing some of the problems I'd noticed the day before. Now that I'm not so cranky, I think I do know what to do about it: get tougher with the self-editing.

I started switching up some of the language, rephrasing so it's less write-y and more speak-y, and looking for words that are evocative but not concrete enough, and dropping them. Also tried to be really hard@ss with my thinking: Does this have to be here? Is it necessary for...

I am extraordinarily displeased.Due to lack of laptop acc...

I am extraordinarily displeased.

Due to lack of laptop access, I had to take a printout of the first 80 pages to the library. I don't like the smarmy fake voice of the first 40 pages. I don't like the way it tells a bunch of cr*p and nothing happens. And I don't know what to do about it.

I wasn't at all in the mood to work on this part today. And I don't mind if the beginning is a little slow, because that will weed out more immature readers before the R-rated stuff starts happening (why so man...

Worked on Menelaus today. Towards the end of the writing ...

Worked on Menelaus today. Towards the end of the writing session I made a sizable deletion (sizable at this stage in the process, anyway) and started welding together two pieces that had been separated by the deleted portion and by some other stuff that's been moved out of the way. However, I ran out of time and didn't get to finish putting it together. Now I've got family stuff to do, which is too bad, because I would have liked to get those two pieces at least basted to each other, wordwise...

Been thinking about the last section, the one that doesn'...

Been thinking about the last section, the one that doesn't match the rest in format or tone. Right now it's mostly in dialog because it's still in raw form from when the ms was a GN. These last scenes tend to be long flowing stretches of conversation, whereas the rest of the book is made up of concise bits with one main idea per page. I always figured I'd eventually divide the last section into smaller ideas to make it match the rest of the ms.

But the other day when I was going over it, ther...

Yesterday I poked tentatively around in that gap in the m...

Yesterday I poked tentatively around in that gap in the middle of the ms, trying to figure out what needs to be said. Everything I did was prewriting, more like testing the ice to see if any of it will hold my weight. No, wait...it wasn't even that productive. It was more like glancing around to see if there's any ice starting to form that I might be able to test later. I didn't really do much of anything, but it's a nothing that has to be done so that the somethings can be done later. Plus, ...

I ended up taking out a spiral and sitting in front of th...

I ended up taking out a spiral and sitting in front of the computer making a list/outline of what I have in the ms. Chapter/section title, then the keywords about what's in it, and so on through the first part of the book. Of course, doing this means I stopped to fix stuff and never got to Menelaus. But...I unwove that one thread that's been bugging me and separated it, and after today's work I'm now thinking that maybe I've almost got a decent grip on nearly half the book now. If so, that is...

Yesterday I only got to work for about an hour. I tried t...

Yesterday I only got to work for about an hour. I tried to work on the Menelaus section, but couldn't get the scenes lined up in the right order so that they flow and build. I need to get a grip on the big picture for that section, and maybe the one after it (what used to be one long Menelaus section is now several sections, still all about him), so that I can understand what I'm trying to accomplish. When I'm in the middle of a page, it seems to flow into the next one, but then I get to a th...

Something's really bugging me about this ms. I'm having a...

Something's really bugging me about this ms. I'm having a terrible time transitioning from general narration to specific scenes. I just slide from the generalities into the scenes, so the reader doesn't realize s/he's in a scene till it's already going. I think the reason this is happening, besides my usual problems with transitions, is the formating of this ms, plus the huge amount of telling vs. showing. I start off telling, saying something like "Such-and-such always happens this way," and...