I have been progressing like wild fire on Pirates. While this is undoudoutably A Good ThingTM I should have been working on Died, or at least, that was my intention. And Juliet is awaiting another revision.
While I don’t believe in inspiration—just hard work. I can’t really feel up to adandoning a good creative streak when the ideas flow on and on. Perhaps inspiration favours the prepared notebook?
I finished my latest runthrough on Juliet last week. I think that I have all the plot mechanics ironed out now; things that were too vague are definately clearer. But I am still not satisfied with the manuscript. I tried reading parts out loud and immediately heard problems of rythmn and structure. Small argh. These are moments when I think that dictation software is a good idea. (I know it isn’t, this is just shifting the problem elsewhere.) So a new rewrite is due.
This week I set out to continue Died. And got hijacked. Two new chapters for Pirates appeared. Just like that. (Just the plot, not the writing… would it be so easy…). What really happened was I was thinking about different plot mechanics and twists and these prequel scenes appeared. Prequel in that they take place before what was previously Chapter One. This is annoying as I had decided on a particular structure. This is not annoying in that they are good and interesting and solve a lot of later problems. It just means that I must go back and cross out the structure idea.
(I might as well explain the structure idea: Pirates is in 5 parts—seems like a good structure, and fits the plot—each part was to be narrated by a different person from the book, in that it would be his/her POV in play there. Except the new prequel chapters can’t be narrated by the person who should do Part One. He cannot, cannot be there. Impossible. Shucks. It was a nice idea. Medium-sized argh.)
I finished the latest run through with Juliet and have probably 10% of the work in blue with comments to myself inside braces. This may not seem like much but that is at least 5000 words in limbo. More even in fact as there often second and third choices in there. I understand that this is because this is special for a number of reasons, it being the first real work that I have attempted (oh, all right, the second then…), and the fact that I want it to be good. And finished. I think that the only way to achieve this is to put Juliet aside for a while.
-sigh-
The sigh is because Died isn’t going better. Expanding my notes is so slow. Yesterday I probably managed 5 lines. 50 words???
