Writing Update

[pameladean]

I've been averaging about four hundred words a day for the past week. Compared to a lot of people whose journals I read, this is paltry. And this is why I have such a long deadline for Going North. I am particularly pleased to have finally gotten a major character on stage for the first time.

Of especial note is that the sections from Ruth's viewpoint now feel like a Secret Country book; the voice has returned. It's not the same voice, of course, because things have changed; but it's in the right category. Arry's sections are considerably more problematic, but one thing at a time.

Pamela

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

If you don't rewrite more than two hundred of those words (not just replacing the words, but replacing what they represent), you'll be far ahead of me.

And, I gather, ahead of some people who support their families on money from writing.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

400 words a day may seem paltry, but it'll add up to a novel the length of Farthing or Tooth and Claw in less than a year. (And that's with time off for weekends.) So, y'know, go you.

[pameladean]

Indeed, bird by bird.

Thanks.

Pamela

[oursin.livejournal.com]

There was an improving little story that I was told as a child, about a tapestry made by some queen (most of the details have faded utterly, I think it was Queen Mary, but which of that ilk I can't recall), and a little girl looking at it, sumptuous as it was, every inch covered with embroidery, and being told that it was made 'one stitch at a time'.

Even when I don't seem to be getting very much further forward on the Current Project, I console myself that each small thing, even if it's only formatting bits of the bibliography into a common style, is something that is DONE.

[pameladean]

I should think that getting bits of the bibliography formatted definitely counts as something done. Otherwise you have to do it all at that last minute, when you feel Finished, Damn It and don't want to be messing with a lot of silly detail.

I like the tapestry story. I once tried to describe my writing process as being like making a patchwork quilt; this is also done one stitch at a time but there are fewer stitches as a rule.

Pamela

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Of especial note is that the sections from Ruth's viewpoint now feel like a Secret Country book; the voice has returned. It's not the same voice, of course, because things have changed; but it's in the right category.

Good. Good. This just happened through the writing?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I haven't written a word for weeks.

I'm really glad it's starting to feel right, that's wonderful. I feel a really strong yearning towards this novel.

[pameladean]

I'd be horrified if you had, mostly from a "the flesh is finite" perspective.

It's not just you, there are several of you super-producers.

I hope the novel is not a disappointment to you. I've never written anything with this much expectation attached. I can tell already that this won't affect the writing in the least, it'll just color the kind of fretting that one always does in the interstices. I expect that will be balanced out by the comfortable knowledge that people want to read it, which is really very useful indeed.

Pamela

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Excellent. I'm really looking forward to this one.

[pameladean]

But your icon says Plot Does Matter! Aieeeeee!

(There, there, just kidding.)

Pamela

[alfvaen]

I'm writing 50,000 words over three months for this segment of NaNoWriYe(qv.), which averages out to between 500-600 words a day. Generally, I either write on a day or I don't, so the quota creeps up slowly, or not so slowly by the end of the period. I can manage it fairly easily, but I am so very definitely in Crappy First Draft mode.

I can manage to do the 50,000 words in one month for NaNoWriMo, but that's a lot more work, and still pretty crappy. I can do 2500 words in a day, but it's work. Especially considering I'm still working full-time, so this all happens after the kids are in bed.