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NaNo update
Nov. 7th, 2011 12:52 pmWell I made it to 10k on Sunday so I'm managing not to fall behind, but I have yet to get a full day ahead at any point (the closest I came to that was the first day).
Yesterday revealed that chapter two will need a complete rewrite, not just heavy editing. This was not surprising really, I knew I was going to be working on that chapter again because it was pretty horrible. Though I didn't think I would be tossing almost the whole thing out. I didn't want to get bogged down there, so I slapped a paragraph about what I needed to change, and some ideas I had to fix things, and continued on with chapter three.
The structure of this novel is both good and bad for me. Good in that I can just slap a paragraph saying "trash this and start over" and jump the year and a moon gap to the next chapter. Bad in that each chapter basically starts "cold" since the last events I wrote about happened a year and moon ago.
At least I can hammer out absolute crap for a chapter, which is "just" 3850 words, and then time jump and try again. In hindsight, I should have thought about significant events to happen in each chapter before I started writing. It would have been easier to do that if I weren't locked into specific months (well, moons, but close enough) for each chapter. It is hard to think of a significant event in, say, May at age two, and then one in June at age three.
I also think that maybe I should have reconsidered the age for Karen. I didn't want her to be any older than 16 at the end, which led me to starting the story with her just a year old (so she would end the story at thirteen) but I'm thinking now that maybe I should have started her at age four so she would end at sixteen, just so I wouldn't have to write a small child for so long. I have zero experience in raising small children (or not so small children for that matter) so I've added an extra burden or research to my writing this year.
Perhaps I'll switch gears, after this chapter, and jump her age up. I know I'll be rewriting these first chapters anyway since chapter one had its own problems and chapter two is set to basically be rewritten entirely anyway. I could probably shift chapter three by three months and make it the new chapter one. I suppose I will decide that when I get to the end of this chapter.
I could write my last chapter now and get ahead in the word count, Scrivener's work flow makes that ridiculously easy, but since that's the only chapter where I know what I am going to write I'm saving it for the rush to the end.
And now I should settle in to write my 1667 minimum for today.
Yesterday revealed that chapter two will need a complete rewrite, not just heavy editing. This was not surprising really, I knew I was going to be working on that chapter again because it was pretty horrible. Though I didn't think I would be tossing almost the whole thing out. I didn't want to get bogged down there, so I slapped a paragraph about what I needed to change, and some ideas I had to fix things, and continued on with chapter three.
The structure of this novel is both good and bad for me. Good in that I can just slap a paragraph saying "trash this and start over" and jump the year and a moon gap to the next chapter. Bad in that each chapter basically starts "cold" since the last events I wrote about happened a year and moon ago.
At least I can hammer out absolute crap for a chapter, which is "just" 3850 words, and then time jump and try again. In hindsight, I should have thought about significant events to happen in each chapter before I started writing. It would have been easier to do that if I weren't locked into specific months (well, moons, but close enough) for each chapter. It is hard to think of a significant event in, say, May at age two, and then one in June at age three.
I also think that maybe I should have reconsidered the age for Karen. I didn't want her to be any older than 16 at the end, which led me to starting the story with her just a year old (so she would end the story at thirteen) but I'm thinking now that maybe I should have started her at age four so she would end at sixteen, just so I wouldn't have to write a small child for so long. I have zero experience in raising small children (or not so small children for that matter) so I've added an extra burden or research to my writing this year.
Perhaps I'll switch gears, after this chapter, and jump her age up. I know I'll be rewriting these first chapters anyway since chapter one had its own problems and chapter two is set to basically be rewritten entirely anyway. I could probably shift chapter three by three months and make it the new chapter one. I suppose I will decide that when I get to the end of this chapter.
I could write my last chapter now and get ahead in the word count, Scrivener's work flow makes that ridiculously easy, but since that's the only chapter where I know what I am going to write I'm saving it for the rush to the end.
And now I should settle in to write my 1667 minimum for today.
