Removing the Unnecessary Ten Percent

Here we are at almost the end of January. First of all, Thank God. Granted, this year has been remarkably warm and snow free. And I'm sure the experience last year of having so many days well below zero and so much snow stacked upon more and more snow didn't help my impressions of January much -- to say nothing of spending the month on a daily watch to decide when it was time to put my dog down. January 2011? Seriously, screw it. If I could have the chance to travel back in time and relive a month of my life, that's not the one I'd choose.

But like I said, this one hasn't been as bad. I do have a couple of things to keep my head occupied, which has helped the time pass. In fact, one of them actually makes me wish I could slow down time a little bit: Taking the time to write this post means that I am momentarily stepping away from manuscript revisions. I think each writer approaches the revision process differently, so in case anyone who follows the blog and has been reading about this project for the past few months might be interested, I'm offering up a glimpse of what revisions are for me. This way, if you ever ask me how the "book" is coming and I say I'm doing revisions, you'll have an idea of the insanity and frustration I'm living through.

(And incidentally, I put "book" in quotes up there because I don't think of it as a book yet. In my goal-oriented head, it will not have earned the right to be called a book until it's published. A book is a product. A manuscript is a process. This is the same logic that makes me hesitant to refer to myself as a "writer," and never as an "author" because I have not yet achieved that benchmark of getting a toehold in the industry. But the fact that I used "yet" in that previous sentence without overthinking its inclusion must reflect a combination of ambition and uncharacteristic positive expectation.)

*The biggest thing I'm doing right now is editing. When I sent it out to my 5 beta readers I warned them all they were looking at a first draft, saying I was more concerned with their impressions of the overall story instead of the specific writing. And I'm glad I said that, because as I read through it all with a critical eye, I'm finding a lot of mess and lazy that happened due to the one-month sprint. But so far the fixes have been coming along well. Stephen King's revision formula is "First Draft Minus Ten Percent," which for me would be cutting about 6,600 words. I'm about halfway through it so far and have already cut about 5,000. I've always anticipated cutting 10,000-12,000 by the end, so I'm on track for that.

*As I reread, I leave electronic notes in the margins about things I want to fix: "too wordy," "didn't I say this three chapters ago?" "can't use that word three times in a paragraph," "too descriptive - pick up the action here," "more interiority here," "bad line, too contrived," "one word instead of two," "this only needs to be a paragraph, not a page," and so on. Whoever added the code for the comments feature in Pages - thank you.

*One thing that happens as you write a book is that your characters evolve. This means that I'm seeing some characters do or say things earlier in the book that are completely out of character for who they became in the end. It takes some reworking to fix that. For example, one character's dialogue is being almost completely rewritten as I go, because I didn't know him very well in the beginning, and as I read the earlier things he said, they don't fit the person he became. So, revise.

*I have no idea how many prepositional phrases I've disposed of so far. A lot.

"I've got a few powerful writing crutches -- these are favorite words or modifiers or pet phrases I overuse. An example: If you read Stephen King, you've probably noticed the way he will shoehorn a song quote into his story to emphasize a point, saying something like "What was it that Bruce Springsteen song said?" and then he'll use the quote. I'm personally not a fan of that because it's such an identifiable device that it pulls me out of the story when he does it. For me, I have a list of words I overuse to death, such as: really, that, sort of, a little, had, and just, to name a few. This means running a search for each of those words, looking for every time they appear and deciding case by case how necessary it is to keep them. If not, they're gone.

*Some changes can be made on the fly as I just read. If I see a quick way to fix something, I can just snip, snip, and save, and move on. Those are the fixes I like more.

*And there is a healthy amount of procrastinating going on sometimes as well. "I'll be able to focus more if I straighten up the desk first." "I need better music. What's the tone I need? I should play with iTunes awhile and figure that out." "I'll get the juices flowing if I read for awhile instead." (That one usually is true, by the way.) "I've gotten quite a bit done tonight -- maybe it's time for a podcast / iPhone gaming break."

The problem with the procrastinating is that I do have a deadline now. To stay on schedule for what I want to accomplish by the summer and to have a first revision pass finished for my own reason, I'm making myself be done by February 5th. There will still be at least another revision or two following that later in the spring, but at that point I should be comfortable enough with the manuscript to feel it represents what I'm trying to achieve. And at that point, I will make it available for anyone interested in reading it. It's a thing for me to ask people to read my writing -- I really feel uncomfortable doing anything that wedges me into someone else's life in any way unless I'm sure they want me there, so I don't like making anyone feel obligated to read what I've written unless they really want to. I've done that many times in the past and it rarely works out well. So I'm letting you know now: I'm going to be done by Feb. 5th. At that point, I'm going to ask if anyone would like to read this. But I'm only asking once.

Okay. There's your progress update. Now back to chapter fifteen.....

The Black Hole of Life That is January

Okay, yeah. For the three people that may have noticed, I've been off the radar a bit. Lot going on in December to start with, and any creative energy I have going on right now is devoted to revisions. This gets in the way of blogging, which I'm sure is very disappointing for the spam sites that show up as links on my stats page.

Today is January first. I'm not wishing anyone a happy new year here today because as far as holidays go, it's not one that carries a lot of importance with me. Plus, January first ushers in what is easily my least favorite time of the year: January. I hate it. Cold, long, dark, and depressing. Thirty-one days worth of feeling like the other shoe hasn't just dropped, but it's kicking you in the head repeatedly.

Luckily I've got revisions to keep my head occupied. And also lucky, I have a few games and a few books lined up as well. But I know me and January, and I know this is not going to be enough. So I'm putting it out there: Does anyone have suggestions of ways I can keep some kind of grip on my soul while January tries to steal it away? Hobbies, routine changes, anything that will help the rest of this eternal month evaporate away? If anyone comes up with something inspired, who knows? It might lead to its own post.

I'm tightening up the comment feature here just because so much of my traffic seems to be coming from random websites I've never heard of. So if you've got anything and feel inspired to save my month a little bit, leave a comment on the Facebook link likely led you here. Otherwise, if you encounter me in the real world before we reach February and I seem kind of cranky? Don't say you weren't warned....

How to Write a Novel in 33 Days

There. It's done, as of about 20 minutes ago. 65,000+ words, in 33 days, with one long holiday weekend full of family and three nights of parent/teacher conferences, mind you. I am so looking forward to reintroducing myself to the idea of free time. I got my winner badge about a week ago, but as of today the manuscript is done. I am immensely proud of the story I've told, and I know I'll be even more proud once its in good enough shape for people to read. Because it's really just a first draft now, which means I haven't even started on the heavy lifting yet. And I'm not planning to for at least a couple of weeks. But for now, I can enjoy the fact that this stage of the process is complete.

So, are you one of the millions out there thinking you'd like to try writing a book someday? The only things standing in your way are finding an idea you want to work with and the motivation to get from start to finish. But what about doing it in just one month? That is a different animal altogether. Here's one person's version of how to get that done:

*Let it take over your life. Write every moment you're able, think about it when you aren't, structure everything else to fit that schedule. Seriously. It's only one month, after all. In the broader scope of your life and what you'll have to show for your efforts when you finish, that's barely a footnote. Suck it up, cupcake.

*Have the right soundtrack. I have three or four albums I became so dependent on over the past month that I'll never again be able to listen to them without visualizing specific scenes from the book.

*Let the caffeine win. I'm not saying this is a good idea overall, but it's a nice temporary solution to the lack of sleep you'll experience. On one hand, it keeps your brain firing off ideas long after it really wants to anymore, and on the other hand it will keep you moving throughout the next day when you're trying to get by on the maybe four hours of sleep you allowed yourself the night before.

*Set your goal and meet it, without excuse. I knew I wanted at least 60,000 words, so I set a goal of 2,000 a day. For those of you in the non-writing world, that's approximately six to eight double-spaced word-processed pages daily. My average at the end? I just did the math on this. 1999.3939 words. So technically I didn't meet the goal, but I got within less than a word per day. I suppose I could have knocked off 20 more words just to hit that mark, but I know I'll but cutting at least 10,000 of them when I start editing, so there wasn't much point. The story only needed what it got.

*Last thing: Have something to say you believe in. In this case, I had a story that has been with me now for over fifteen years in different incarnations. It started as a short story that I liked but others felt ended too abruptly, then it became a manuscript I liked more than the literary agents of America did. When I decided to give it some retooling, I found new things to try that I think have brought it at least close to the epic that I always wanted to tell but knew in my heart I hadn't achieved.

And frankly, I cannot wait for people to read it. Very soon I'll be hitting up a small circle of beta readers to give it a look -- these are the people I know I can trust to give me the honest reads and opinions I'll need before I get into the revision phase, the ones who will be able to see past the typos and misplaced punctuation that comes hand in hand with writing at this speed, and who will be able to read it as a book instead of as "A Book Written By Someone I Know." That's a hard filter to set aside for a lot of people. So, for anyone following my progress who's curious enough to see the final product, I hope to have something ready for you in January. And for the beta readers -- well, you pretty much know who you are at this point and since you're probably some of the few people that follow this blog with any regularity, you should be checking your e-mail very, very soon. I'll be very anxious to hear back from you.

But in the mean time... I think it's time to fire up some mindless XBox again. I believe I have earned it.