Broke a one month long writer’s block today with the completion of the first draft of a 6500-word urban fantasy/horror short story. Hurray!
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*high-five from far away*
Woo-hoo! *high-five smack back*
Eeeexcellent!
I so look forward to telling I knew her when… stories about the early portion of your writing career.
Possible omen: I met Remy Zero through a friend of a friend back in the day when they were playing in bars…and look at them now!
Re: Eeeexcellent!
“Don’t worry dahling, I shan’t forget the little people . . . ” 🙂
Oo! Maybe you’re like a fame charm and if I rub my manuscripts on your arm before I send them to the editors or, wait, better yet, I can lop off one of your feet and stick it on a key chain!
Err.
Um, going to work on the rewrite now . . . .
Cool! Do you do a lot of rewriting and stuff? Do you write fast and clean up later, or slow, or in spurts, or what? When I’m actually finding time to do it, I tend to write about 3 to 500 words a day. It’s horribly frustrating, but it does add up after a while. A consistent 2500 words a week got my novel finished in time to turn in for my undergraduate thesis, and I don’t tend to do much revision. Trying to revise drives me crazy; maybe that’s why I spend so much time trying to get it right on the first go. Not that I shouldn’t work on expanding my library of techniques…
I hear Vonnegut says all writers are either like him, slow and little or no revision, or the other kind, who write fast and chop out all the fluff later. And I think I heard Tom Robbins agonizes over single sentences for days, but never goes back to make changes once he’s got it the way he wants it.
Re-writing
Hey, Dr. Pipe,
I’m the write-fast-and-re-write-until-my-fingers-cramp-up sort of writer. I’ve done 3000 words a day, although that’s a really good day for me. I average more along 1500 or so on normally productive days. I also re-write as I go. I often get back into the swing of a story by limbering up with a re-write/edit of the stuff I’ve managed to get down so far. Overall, I find re-writing way easier than creating new material. I’ve even done final edits while watching television.
All of my stories go through three distinct stages.
Stage 1: First draft. Story complete from start to finish. Has already undergone many impromptu self edits. Ready for my first reader. I have an excellent first reader, btw. I trust his opinion more than anyone else’s, except for my own, of course.
Stage 2: Second draft. Revise, edit, re-write based upon my first reader’s comments and suggestions. Ready for writers group(s) input. Most of my stories are close to their final format at this stage.
Stage 3: Final draft. Minimal revision, edits, and re-writing from critiques. Done. Ready to hit the markets.
I wish I could be as prolific as Ray Bradbury. He writes the equivalent of a short story a week. We tried doing that in one of my writers groups, but it quickly fell to one every other week. And that’s gotten a bit irregular. Sigh.
Re: Re-writing
Story a week? God. I’ve been working on The Horror for like two months now, and its probably only about 2/3 done. I’m determined, though; I have a tendancy to move on to other projects before finishing the one I’m engaged in, thinking I’ll finish later. Usually doesn’t happen.
Re: Re-writing
Ray Bradbury has been that prolific all his life and still is (last I heard). Quite an amazing man.
Nice! I know how it is to totally be out of it and suddenly get back in the zone.
Feels awesome 🙂 Way to go hon.
Smooches!
Thanks! Now if I can only keep it rolling . . . .