Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Translation from my head to the keyboard


























I love this freaking story. (even my big 'ole chunk of a first draft that my 2 year old scribbled all over.)

I'm finding this so hard. I have this story all laid out in my head visually. I know every facial expression, every smell and scene as though it happened to me yesterday. The problem is...I'm just not that good at writing!

So, I'm learning sentence by sentence. I've written and re-written this story in so many forms over the last 6 years. The first version was very, very cheesy. It lacked reality and didn't include the paranormal aspects that I now find to be at the heart of the story. The next version was the huge chunk I wrote for NaNoWriMo last November. Like I said before, I felt so confident that I was tempted to print it and pass it out to friends. (I get all swept up in my own delusions)

Luckily, I held off- distracted by the holidays. Then I picked up a red pen and began reading it.

I was painfully aware of the boring back-story, the unlikely events, and the horrible sentence structure that I'm always hoping will be chocked up as my "style". I was pretty discouraged.

Then I re-wrote a beginning and had Matt (my husband) read it.

I thought it was strong, but I started it a a totally random place, thinking it could propel the story better than a logical place to start. It was not good.

That's when I read a book about strong beginnings that inspired me to find that inciting event that sets the pace, and the scope of the story. It was a big risk, I thought, introducing someone into the story in the first paragraph that I hadn't planned to show until much, much later.

I'm glad I did, though. Now I just need to figure out how to use words in a way that doesn't bury these characters in a pile of language that does nothing for them.

I'm not sure if I should just be writing or reading to get better at this. I hope to re-write the section I posted below or to continue on in the story and just get the words down. For the 4th time.

This is all on top of the fact that I have 3 children, work at a preschool co-op and have a huge drawing project to complete for a client. I hate to admit it, but my obsession with this story has got to take a back seat- at least until today's to-do list is complete. Then I can thrust myself back into Nina's head and try to figure out what she would say is going on.

2 comments:

  1. You can so write silly girl! I've read it. It is awesome and your writing is quite good. It will never be perfect. Make a decision to do one more rewrite and then have someone edit(Stephen King has an editor he calls something like the manuscript murderer) because the fact is really hard to write a story you know so well because you knwo what you meant to say.

    So carry on..one chapter at a time..once the first is done, edit to bits and then, this time, never touch it again. sent it to print...end of story and get on with the next book

    Breeze

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  2. Thanks for the encouragement! And I am trying to eek it out, when I have a chance.

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