Update on Writing and Books

[ravens_quills]

Writing:
Well, as usual, the writing is going well. I haven't had motivation problems with first drafts in a long time. Plundering Freedom is sitting at 64,477 words after a writing marathon at Forward Motion this week-end

Comments

[spottedcat83]

The idea of the story is always better than the reality of writing it.

But it's always worth writing anyway. Some readers will catch the shadow of what you saw.

[ravens_quills]

Thank you. Sorry I didn't get back sooner. You're right, of course, but it's not always easy to see! That said, the revision is doing much better.

[shtick_figure]

The initial vision of a work is shiny and new and usually pretty simple, but as the story grows it suddenly seems not-so-shiny, and old, and messy, and way too complex (at least it does for me). The initial vision suddenly seems so much better! But just work through it--something of that initial vision is still there but it's now more complex than you imagined and will seem a tad overwhelming.

(Says the girl who's still in the revising stage...)

[ravens_quills]

That's useful -- especially since I tend to prefer complex to simple. Actually, I'm having the opposite issue: the result seems so much simpler than what I imagined, and I don't know how to make it more complex!

[c_p_lew]

Hi - Chanpheng from FM.

I used to be a potter and one of the confounding things was how much I loved the pots when first thrown or constructed, but once they were dried and fired, I didn't like them so much. Well, clay shrinks and so the pots always seemed so small and stodgy in comparison with the newly emerged pot. After a while, I came to appreciate what the glaze and firing do to a pot; certainly makes it easier to drink out of!

Writing the same way. Sometimes, I just get these flashes of what I want to say and when I actually get to writing it, it seems different, dead. But then there are these periods where the words start to get together again. Just strive for it, I guess.

[9bloodychalices]

Thank you. That's very helpful!

[ravens_quills]

Whoops - that was me (my old NaNo 2005 journal!).