writing diary
Aug. 11th, 2005 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deborahjrossFinished the middle section of SHIELD and then spent the next couple of days fleshing out the end. There will be lots of balancing between this and earlier parts. I'm building 3 different cultures in this series, so there are lots of placeholders awaiting revision. This is good, because I love revision. Sometimes, doing a first draft is just like slogging through molasses, hoping for enough little grass-islands to make it across. Best done semi-conscious. I can get really grouchy when I revise, when I'm holding 500 pages of plot in my head at once and these ... connections start to emerge. Exhilarating, but it takes a lot to get there.
So I noggled through 5 pages at the beginning of the third section. New POV character who started speaking to me at once, very friendly and sisterlike. A couple of cool horses, ditto. Spent the rest of the afternoon researching. I have a new technique for online research, which is to open a WP file, and then cut and paste the stuff I'll want to refer to so it's all in one place. Like a list of the plants of the Mongolian steppe. Don't want to have to look that up every time I need a colorful detail. Found some cool folk songs, although I will probably have to rewrite the lyrics to fit my own world.
So I noggled through 5 pages at the beginning of the third section. New POV character who started speaking to me at once, very friendly and sisterlike. A couple of cool horses, ditto. Spent the rest of the afternoon researching. I have a new technique for online research, which is to open a WP file, and then cut and paste the stuff I'll want to refer to so it's all in one place. Like a list of the plants of the Mongolian steppe. Don't want to have to look that up every time I need a colorful detail. Found some cool folk songs, although I will probably have to rewrite the lyrics to fit my own world.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-12 08:29 am (UTC)I find that my organizing techniques have changed over the years. For one thing, I'm doing more outlining and "pre-writing," which is partly because these last and next books were sold on proposal. Doesn't mean I have to stick with the outline, but at least I have one. And a timetable.
I used to print out draft chapters as I wrote them and then do my first go-through on hard copy. Now I just back them up and do the first round of revisions on the computer. It felt so odd at first, and I can't remember why I decided to change, but it worked really well. Then I print that version out and go through by hand. I see different things onscreen and on paper. I can't put my finger on the difference, just that it's there. Maybe it wouldn't make any difference which order I did them in, either.
I remember some years ago visiting a Famous Author, who had a cardboard bankers box, divided with those extra heavy-duty dividers, one numbered for each chapter. As she'd revise each chapter, she'd replace it in the file. I don't know if she kept the old chapters. I always did, and had a number of occasions to rejoice that I had previous versions. Now they're all on CD. I keep telling myself that storage is the cheapest insurance I can get, so save everything. There have been so many times when I decided the previous version of something was the right one, or wanted to use it in another place or even another story.
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Date: 2005-08-12 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-12 09:18 pm (UTC)