Holly Lisle's Blog, page 12

Nope. It’s gonna have to be the HARD way.

Completed the read-through with notes this morning, and while I have a good main story, this damn thing is gonna take a lot of work.

I can’t blame anyone or anything but myself for this. I had a good line-for-scene outline for Book 2, but when I had a better idea, I made a pure rookie move, and dropped my outline to chase it.

In my own defense, the better idea actually WAS. I’m relieved to prove to myself that, yeah, I DO actually still recognize a better idea when one bites me on the ass and races off laughing like a loon into the shrubbery.

Kicking myself in the seat of the pants, now, though… 

Indefensibly, I did not OUTLINE the better idea. I left my existing line-for-scene outline sitting ignored on my Scrivener notecards, and I just leapt in and chased.

So now, all the way to the end of Book 2, I’m looking at a big reorganization, a clean-up re-plot to fix the shit I broke, and before I get too crazy, a quick re-read of Book 3’s first draft, where the back of my mind says some of the less-great choices I made in Book Two that I’m going to be removing got picked up and carried forward a bit.

However, the really big problem in Book Two is that, in chasing the better idea, I dropped a primary thread from the first book and misplaced my most important secondary character for the entire book, and I’m going to have work them into the revision.

Book One was a smooth, beautiful revision.

Book Two’s revision, which follows the just-completed read-through-and-mark-up, is going to be anything but.

I’m annoyed with myself — Ohio 2 revision read-through, markup… and an unanticipated issue

So I’m all the way through page 422 on the read-through of Book 2.

There are 431 printed pages in the first-draft manuscript, and you’d think, wouldn’t you, that being this close to the end of the book, I’d just finish the read-through and mark-up today?

Usually, I would.

But I’ve been hitting some walls with this novel’s first draft. Places where I alluded to a lot of worldbuilding that I hadn’t actually done, places where I used a couple of sentences to have something happen, and where that action needed at LEAST a full scene, and maybe even its own chapter…

And while it’s evident that I had a helluva lot of fun worldbuilding on the fly, and beating up my MC, and putting all the folks I like in awful danger…

There are places in Book Two that read like a pretty good line-for-scene outline.

Book ONE is ready for typesetting and publication.

Book TWO is going to take a full-on revision and is going to probably come out the other end of its ordeal about 25% longer than it is right now. Best case.

So before I read what I decided made a good ending for Book Two when I wrote the first draft, I’m just going to let the story perk in the back of my mind for the rest of today.

I’ll come back in tomorrow morning when I’m fresh, drop back a few pages to the beginning of the current chapter, read to the end, and then see if I can find a relatively short way to solve the problem I’ve made for myself.

If not, I’ll be returning to the beginning of Book Two to build out the solution I see right now, which will add about a third to the length of this novel, and MIGHT complicate some of what I’ve written in Three through Five.

Arrgh!

Read-through write-in revision of Ohio 2 now done through page 233 of 431

Read-through/write-in notes today flew, with Book 2 being a remarkably clean first draft (not even a lot of typos)…

…Right up to the point where it wasn’t. 

In the last three novels, I changed some of the worldbuilding that I did in Two to something much better. And when I ran into the spot where I’d used OLD worldbuilding on page 221, I ended up doing a hard re-think on how I could save most of what I’d written in the next few chapters while still removing one BIG change that could have cost me about three to four chapters.

Got it, managed to do it while only killing about 250 words, and tomorrow I’ll get to write a nifty bit of new stuff that makes the world a little weirder… but while NOT BREAKING later worldbuilding essential to the rest of the five novels. (And, if the first five find their readership, more books beyond them.)

Seventy-five pages of revision on Ohio Two… (evil grin)

I’m discovering there a massive advantages in writing five novels back to back. 

The stories are connected in your head while you write them.

And then they’re connected in your head while you revise them. On the writing side of this, seventy-five pages into Book Two, I haven’t had ANY continuity errors from what I wrote in Book One, the characters and situations were clearly fresh in my mind as I was developing scenes and situations.

From the point of having all those novels cool down while the next ones were being written, I came at Book Two not as someone who remembered what was in there really well, but as a brand new reader.

It all fit with the first book, but I didn’t remember a damn thing about it. So I found myself laughing my ass off at stuff that took me by surprise, and being surprised a whole lot.

And occasionally horrified, and grossed out (in the place where I was supposed to be). Distance lends perspective, and while I had a LOT of typos, I’ve only had a few places where stuff had to be modified to fit what I know is coming in later books.

Nothing — so far — breaks the revised version of Book One.

And I am looking forward to tomorrow. 

(Yeah, I know it isn’t all going to be smooth sailing. I already know there are places in TWO that are going to require significant revision to fit stuff coming up. But so far… WHEEEEE!!!)

Revising Ohio Two (starting today)

Manuscript is printed, I’m past the headache and my frustration with my HP LaserJet Pro M404n (if you’re using a Mac, that now comes with a big “run the other way” recommendation from me), I’m in a good mood, and after hunting down a damned empty revision notebook (process matters to a good revision, dammit — and Book Two is good and cold in my mind), and a couple of ball-point pens, I’m going in.

Wish me luck.

Cuss, cuss, swear, swear, @#%^&*Z!!!!

Seriously… 

What a week.  Earlier, the kitchen sink started spouting water, so we were doing dishes in the bathroom sink.

Then the water heater died. Matt found a plumber, who will be coming out today, but since Monday, I’ve been refreshing my unused-but-never-forgotten camping skills, and have been doing a daily bath using one cup of bottled water.

Yeah, it can be done.

Yeah, you can get clean.

No, it is NOT as wonderful as a nice shower with hot water. And washing your hair in the other cup of water from the bottle isn’t fun, and does not give great results.

Good news, though… the plumber is coming today.

Meanwhile, I got ready to print out all four remaining manuscripts for a single five-novel one-pass revision. (Book One is already revised, but I do have to read through it and take notes on important elements that need to be consistent from book to book.)

However, I accidentally printed #5 first, and used up the last of my in-place HP printer cartridge doing that.

No problem, though. I’d bought a well-reviewed refurb cartridge off Amazon. 

Except the product turned out to be A) a counterfeit cartridge for which B) people giving it 5-star reviews could prove they’d purchased it in order to get a $30 kickback from the company (information was in the box). I shredded the kickback offer. (wish I hadn’t now) — I would have added photos of the get-your-kick-back paperwork to my one-star review.

Meanwhile, the printer identified it as counterfeit, and would not use it.

Because I bought it months ago so I’d have it ready to go for the five novels, I couldn’t return it.

So yesterday, we went to the BIG BOX (name withheld ‘cause I’m betting this next thing isn’t their fault) local office supply company, got their brand refill cartridge for $110, and got THIS warning message…

So I didn’t use it. I just put it back in the box, and am hoping that the place from which I bought it will take it back. We paid $110 for it yesterday. I have NO pages to show for that money spent.

So… 

Now I’m just going to wait for the plumber to get here.

Interesting Times … But I printed out Ohio 2 today so I can start the revision.

We’re having Fun with Water Heater and Plumbing(TM) this week, which I don’t recommend.

But today, after a long and ugly fight with my printer (which I won, but not without the damn printer’s damn protest), I got Ohio TWO printed out. Am now going to go plop on the couch and start the read-through portion of the revision.

I’ll take notes in a separate notebook on stuff I’ll need to revise to bring the story together with the first book and the last three, and make notes on all the other How To Revise Your Novel stuff that I’ll need to work on when I move from the read-through portion to write-in portion… and I’ll fix any spelling errors I spot (because I tend to miss these during the actual revision when I’ve already spotted them once). 

But primarily I’m going to be reading for story, and for places where I contradict stuff that happens in the first novel or that I now know will happen in Ohio Three through Ohio Five.

This will take a while, because as soon as I do the read-through and follow-up with the write-in on TWO, I’ll print and revise THREE, and then FOUR, and then FIVE.

My idea is to keep all the stories fresh in my mind so that I don’t have to do so much back-and-forth stuff between the five novels.

We’ll see how that goes.

 

 

FINISHED BOOK FIVE OF THE OHIO SERIES!!!

No, I didn’t plan this. I thought I had another three weeks of writing to hit the end.

Yesterday, I was galloping along, and I’d planned to pick up today with the logical continuation of the scene I wrote yesterday, where my characters were in trouble…

And when I loped back into the office this morning to pick up where I left off, brain said, “Here, little writer. Here you go… have this spiffy bait…”

And I followed along, and the scene did not go where I expected. It went someplace so much better, and surprised me, and made me laugh…

And all of a sudden, in 2,000-ish words, the ending was right there. And it was the RIGHT ending.

So now I’m taking the weekend off.

I have five novels.

I’ve already read and revised the first one. The other four have been sitting on my hard drive, waiting for me to finish the first drafts so I can revise them all at once, and make sure I’m consistent with the changes I make…

Which means re-reading Book One before I do anything else, and then working off of that as I do four back-to-back revisions.

Came up short… but landed well

Today’s scene was fun. I like what I got, I like the twist, I like the humor.

I am, however, not feeling well, and at the point were I realized I’ve been circling the drain on the scene without coming up with a “what next”, or anything else that would let me hit today’s planned word count, I ALSO realized it’s time to go stretch out on the couch and take a nap. Going to skip fixing links in emails today, going to skip heading into the forums. 

I got 1177 words out of 1250 planned, and I really like what I got.

So for today, that’s going to have to be good enough.

Mwah-ha-ha-ha-HA! Evil is afoot, and fun is right on its tail!

Boy, today did not go where I thought it would. Not at ALL.

In the back of my mind, I had this fun little scene planned, and when I popped out of the shower, I knew pretty much where I was going to start.

And I did start there — but absolutely none of the characters in the scene did what I expected, and the twist they threw at me was so wicked, and so perfect, that I ran with it, just to see what the hell the little buggers were going to do next.

Following them turned out to be the right choice, because I’m now deeply enmeshed in evil intentions and terrible plots and a horrible plan…

And tomorrow, I get to deal with that. And the beauty part is that none of this is coming at me out of left field. It all fits, it’s all tightly enmeshed with things that happened in the previous four books, it is the logical outcome of what really happened in yesterday’s scene, and while I need to quit now because I got my words and I have other stuff I have to do…. Well, tomorrow I have the fun of rolling out onto the page EXACTLY how the shit goes down.

Because the shit is gonna go down. 

God, I love this job.