Tag Archives: first draft

11/9/2016: Early Editing Notes

I am just now starting the post-first-draft editing process. I am finding the idea that I will have to rewrite large portions difficult. Perhaps I had unconsciously expected that I would go straight into polishing—making things beautiful, moving them where they fit—but not re-drafting what are essentially new first-draft sections. I knew, on the surface, that this would be required, but apparently, it hadn’t sunk in. But that’s what I’m going to be doing. Interesting thought. It’s good I’m doing this. So right now, I’m figuring out what parts need to be redrafted.

It’s a bit of a downer, since I had thought I was done with this part and could move to the next phase. However, perhaps that’s just wrong thinking. I am at the next part. This is significantly different from creating from nothing. I have a framework, a loose but single body of ideas, and the things I now create come from and fit into that framework. THIS is the next phase. Not the final polish, but the filling of gaps, the reworking of broken and ill-fitting pieces, and the rounding of corners. Once I get all the big stuff reworked, I get all the medium stuff reworked, then the smaller stuff, then the miniscule stuff, THEN the polish.

So… how to redraft? Do I just find the parts that don’t fit and start from scratch on them? Write from clusters, write without an end in mind, largely right-brain creation? Or do I try to figure out exactly what needs to be written, exactly what will fit, exactly the right things?

Should I read through sections and visualize what needs to change in them? Perhaps I should read through them and then do the whole first-draft style of those same sections and allow whatever needs to be put back in there back in there. Should I stick to sections in chapters, whole chapters, what? I expect having flexibility in where I change things helps. I’ll get ideas on other parts as I change things.

Another note. I keep forgetting that this is my first time writing a novel and that I’ll have to figure out what I’m doing as I go along. I keep getting road-blocked because I’m not sure how to move forward and don’t have the fearlessness, or perhaps the perception of freedom, to just plow through. (5/16/2017 The intrinsic and ill-timed requirement that what I create must be perfect stifles me more than pretty much anything else. Spackle first, then sand, then paint, then touch up. I take that back. Grab long thin things, like sticks. Put them together. Cover them with something flattish. Keep doing it, using different materials, different configurations until you end up with something to block bugs and wind and perverts. Then punch holes in your wall—just go crazy—and hang pictures and shelves and towel hooks and curtain rods all over. Take things off and move them. Toss some in the dumpster and get some new stuff and try those. Then Spackle the unused holes, then sand…)

At this stage, I’m not sure how much the graph/chart of themes and plot and time help me. All that stuff will probably change, and I’ll just have to make a new chart. Super annoying. Of course, it may be only as a result of the chart that I’ll see something that needs to be fixed… so yeah.

I just wrote some notes on what (my main antagonist’s) island needs to be like, what development needs to be done there. And I also have to develop magic and a ton of other stuff. I wish I had the drive to develop these open ends that I had when I was working on the game with my brother. I suspect that my addiction-breaking has something to do with my lack of motivation right now. Hopefully it ends soon. I have a lot to do.

Rather than charting, I could mark spots in the text (like &&& for finding them later) that relate to themes and then keep a paragraph-form of the developments of those things in a Word document. I would have sub categories of the various relationships of each of the themes. Of course, that means going back through the text.

On all of my developments, I need to make an action list. Otherwise I’ll just forget all the theory (inevitable) and nothing will be done.

7/15/2016: Write What You Want

You are not constrained to write anything other than what’s natural to you.

And what’s natural to you can be described as “what you want to write apart from external constraints.”

It’s the same idea as “be yourself.” You don’t want to act like someone else or like some standard or “what you should be.” You want to be authentic.

But what about meeting the standard? You want to actually meet the standard. You don’t just want to put on the standard. Thus you want to be authentic and good. And the goodness comes from God, primarily, and from practice and from learning and failing and starting over and getting back up and from being hurt and healing and all the other things that lead to growth.

Thus I write whatever comes naturally apart from constraint. I write what I want to write. And I accept my lack of goodness, to whatever degree I have it, and I enjoy coming up with stuff even if it sucks for the joy of learning how to come up with stuff better, for the joy of finding new connections, for the joy of playing, for the joy of exploring new territory.

I also need to qualify “external constraints.” I doubt it’s possible to be free from external constraints in this life. I will always be afraid to some degree of something. But like all things, perhaps, if God wills it, I will grow in this area as well.

And that’s one of the primary reasons to write this book. To grow in all the ways that I need to in order to create, to write, to be free to be myself. It’s not to write the perfect book. It’s just to write and to see what happens when I do. It’s to watch God work on me through the process of writing and working through all of the issues that surround being myself.

I am in my first draft in more ways than one. The obvious one, of course, involves my creation of a novel. The second one is my continued exploration of the process of creating a novel, and on top of that, the exploration of my own creative self. I am delving into the reaches of my creative side, which I have never focused on to this degree, with this intensity, with this drive. I seem to be moving toward making my natural self a disciplined natural self, which seems good to me (at this time).

It would be a mistake to forget this in any of the aspects in which I am first drafting, although, I should also expect myself to forget this. After all, this is my first draft. (1/19/2017 And true to form, I have forgotten this and have been reminded of it numerous times)

So yes, there are standards—even the ones that surpass the ones I currently know. And yes, it is good to know the standards and to always reach for them and to find the surpassing ones and learn and then reach for those. But that’s kind of the point. We never arrive. There’s always more for which we can reach. We arrive when Christ arrives (1/31/2017 At least to the degree afforded by our escape from sin; I think we’ll always have more we can learn). Until then, we reach. Sometimes in the dark. Sometimes in the wrong direction.

Moreover, it’s when we’re reaching that we tend to find new things. Hence, we create when creating.