Honestly, I’m not being lazy, but I’m expending 99% of my creativity energy on my ever growing novel. Today (Thursday) I have my Olli class, “Fun with Writing,” at 1:30, so I wrote for a couple of hours this morning before getting ready for class.
The novel is still in the first draft stage, even though I’ve been working on it for more years than I want to think about. In the past I’d write a bit, edit, write some more, edit. It seemed like for every step forward I was taking two steps back. Thanks to the wisdom of our Olli instructor, Heather Whitaker, I’m just writing. No editing as I go. Just getting the story out. It feels good.
One might say, I’m on a mission, an inspired march, if you will. And a good march deserves inspiring music.
How about “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes? Rousing!
Praying for Eyebrowz 
Listen my darling …WRITE and write rinse and repeat, no sense editing till you get to the two words THE END. xxxxxxxxxx
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That’s what I’m learning. It’s freeing!
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Well, you know, way back, i used to do that and you just ended ‘unwriting’ everything you had written. I mind reading that in a George Orwell book once, the lead was a writer and like that he started the day with say five pages and ended with half a page. The irony is you change things as you go anyway–big things–so just get it all down, it is freeing x
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I can see that now. And when it’s ready for the first edit I’m likely going to lose a huge chunk of it. C’est la vie, right?
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Maybe, maybe not. I used to write things way back and cos i wasn’t thinking re word count lengths I kept most of it. But now there’s all this stuff re that and given I never plot, I just start,I have no idea if I will even get to the next sentence. Splendor came in at 130 thou words and I had to knock 40 thou off. Don’t ask. But there were bits I didn’t need, bits I rewrote anyway. Bits I changed. When you are trying to get to a specific amount you throw in everything. But there’s other books I’ve done that came in at say 90 thou and stayed that way. So you might not feel the need to yank anything out.
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Thank you! That’s helpful. When I started this thing I didn’t even have a word count in mind. There was just a story I wanted to tell and I started writing. When I realized it was going to be more than a short story and transcribed it into Word, was when it dawned on me I probably needed an idea of how many words I was generating. That was my first big stall in my writing. I kind of got intimidated by the task at hand and stopped writing for a long time.
The blogging helped me get unstuck to some extent—made me realize I could write a bit. But word count kind of messed with my mind for awhile. Now it’s more a measurement of a bare minimum I need to get to. Then let someone knowledgeable help me edit, cut the unnecessary bits and suggest ways to flesh it out.
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Do not EVER think about word count okay. Just write the thing and see where you get to and when you have if you need any help, feel free to ask okay xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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You might regret that offer….😳
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Not at all. I am happy to help x
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Oh do, do it young Leslie. I’m hopeless at marketing for the simple reason it bores me rigid, yet my books, whether risqué or of skits or of poetry I treat as my grave…my last remains. Long since I’ve announced I don’t want a funeral, just my burnt remains sprinkled in Northern France, for I loathe my country of origin. My books are my gravestones and hopefully generations of young chaps and/or lovely gals will say my great, great, great, granddad was a bit of a nutter. Go for it. Regards, The Old Fool
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Keep on writing! You can do it! 😀 (Mike and Shirl sent me to your blog and I’ll be following you now and cheering you on! Glad to meet you.)
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Nice to meet you, Rachel! Thanks for the supportive words.
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I’m trying to get my oompf back. You inspire. 🙂
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I’m hoping to keep my oomph going.
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Very appropriate song, but watching the video made me a bit nauseous 😉
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I know. Just listen, don’t watch.
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Hurry up. I want to read this book. O.K. take your time. Do it right. But, hurry up.
regards,
Blurb Binder
Inklings, Idaho
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It’s very gentle fiction. Probably not your cup of tea, but I’d love for you to read it.
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and I would love to read it.
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There is; however, some nudity. Almost tastefully done.
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I could glance at that…tastefully.
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Yeah, just get it all down. You have tons of time to edit. Great post!
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Thank you!
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That was good advice.
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It’s likely I’ve heard it before, but this time I took it to heart.
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I don’t think I could have ever finished mine if I didn’t just get the whole thing written out first. Editing is a whole other beast that really needed its own time and space that would have messed me up if I’d tried to do it along the way.
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Even now I am so tempted to go back and fix stuff, but I’m sticking to my guns.
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The thing I learned during my editing process is that major pieces can change or shift or get dropped entirely, so any editing you do along the way may not even be needed later. For me, it required me to be in an entirely different mindset than the writing. That mindset really wasn’t compatible with allowing things to flow. Granted, if you were a different type of writer, this may not be an issue and might actually work better, but it sounds like the way you are writing really requires you to just let it flow first and go back and fix later.
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That makes sense.
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