A Flight (a novel) to Remember Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Eight years ago, at the age of 22, I sat at the same desk at which I’m currently writing and decided that the only way I was going to learn how I write novels was to sit down and just write one. I’d written two novels earlier, but as they were both completed before the age of 17 and neither were any good, I abandoned the idea of re-writing a previous project and perused my dozens of handwritten notes. I had notes about female football players and towns I’d called Mansfeld and even lengthy notes about what would eventually become Luka, but I sensed that none of these fit what I was trying to do. I needed something about which I was incredibly passionate and into which I could wholeheartedly throw myself without fear of upcoming boredom and, after a suitable amount of brainstorming, Flight, a novel was born.

I’ve written about Flight here a gazillion times because it was my first real effort in writing as an adult, but over the years I’ve simply looked back at it, fondly recalling what it was like to get new comments from Fanfiction.net about it, etc., and I’d shelved it as a long and so-so written story. Last weekend, however, I found myself honestly bored for the first time in…years, and I sought out something swamped with nostalgia. After cruising Netflix for ten minutes, I perked at the idea of re-watching the earlier seasons of Law and Order: SVU and three episodes in, I had an intense urge to revisit Flight.

I hadn’t actually sat down to really read more than a chapter or two of it in likely five years and, as I was already in an SVU mood, I figured I would laugh at my inability to tell a decent story and take a trip down memory lane. And, I was able to take that desired memorable trip…but I haven’t been able to put down my own old book!

There’s something that feels very narcissistic about reading one’s own writing as if reading the works of others, but I can’t help it. There are missing words every few pages, the prose tells the reader everything because I hadn’t learned “show versus tell” yet, the novel is over 450 thousand words, but I can’t help it! This book I wrote when I really had no idea what the deuce I was doing is compelling even to me, the writer, and I love it.

As I’ve been reading my own work, I’ve asked myself, why am I so engaged? It’s not written very well, it goes on too long in certain areas, and one of the plotlines falls completely flat, but I’m captivated. Is it because I’ve been so disappointed in reading the modern fiction of others lately? I wasn’t terribly impressed with The Lovely Bones and, if I’m honest with myself, I’ve likely turned to Flight because I just didn’t want to face reading The Night Circus anymore. It’s hard to say.

I enjoy this old work of mine on so many levels. Years ago, I put it into Kindle form, so I can actually read it like I would any other book, which just makes the process that much more fun. Aside from reading something that’s just generally enjoyable, I get to envision myself eight years younger as I was writing the very words on the page and that’s worth a post all on its own. For example, I was hardly six months into my current Christian Walk when I started the first notes for Flight and it shows. The use of “goddamn” in every other piece of dialogue is so prevalent that I can hardly believe that I wasn’t still an agnostic when I wrote it.

I’ve still got another third of the book left to go, but I’ll admit that I’ve not been this into a book since I read Gaskell’s North and South for the first time. I’m smitten with my own work, as shameful as it at first seemed, and when I shared this revelation, my mother advised that I shouldn’t feel shamed by liking my own writing. She posed that perhaps I write simply so that I’ll have something I want to read. I don’t generally like most modern fiction. Outside of greats like Crichton and King and then Harry Potter, the only books I’ve really loved in the last decade were written in the 19th century by British women…and to be honest, how far off is Potter from there? Before turning to Flight, I was re-reading Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Making of a Marchioness and loving every minute of it.

As I look to my current projects Anne and Jill, I can’t help but see them through different eyes after re-reading Flight. While I don’t wish to fully emulate what I’d created sans-Bachelor’s degree and eight more years of life experience, I do still wish I could recreate the same energy, the same excitement and fervor, in my current work that I had in Flight. Maybe this was what I needed to make peace with my writing endeavours?

As I did with Flight, I write for myself. I write just so that I will have something that I want to read.

World Keeps Spinning Wednesday, April 30, 2014

I stare at this empty page
The cursor blinks at me
I plead the muse of inspiration
To look down amicably
Upon this Christian soldier’s eyes
That search for daily meaning
In her writing that she creates
Whose verbosity is careening
Out of control. The cursor blinks
With it’s evil grinning
And while the author waits and waits
This world just keeps on spinning.

I’ve not written anything worthwhile here in ages, though a million things have occurred in the last few months. First-job is not un-enjoyable and is moving in a good direction and I’ve got a few eggs dropped into the paths of my literary goals that are finally beginning to hatch.

We lost a church member just last week and her homegoing is this weekend, but I can’t remember the last time I was so uplifted by another soldier’s work. She brought up her family in God’s ways and was a faithful Christian to the very end. Every time I think of her and children, I can’t help praying, “Lord, that’s the kind of Christian I want to be. Help me get there.”

I had an epiphany with Anne this month; simply put, she was just too good. There was no stain upon her character, so I had to muddy her a bit, as even I was beginning to struggle to relate to her.

So, there. Lots of happenings, but nothing particularly notable in a blogging sense, hence the attempt at poetry. On I trek towards my lofty goals…

Onto Stage…Whatever Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Finally, I’m onto file damen1-13k. Technically, it should be 13h, but I don’t really care for the letters F and J, so they were skipped. This is the 8th edit of Damen and in this version, I’ll be doing a spell check/grammar check that’s not truly possible in the full document. Because Microsoft sucks (though their products are sadly the best currently available), their spell check function stops working somewhere around the 100th page and my only way to catch typos, etc. is to find them on my own or add each of my 36 chapters to their own document and individually review the book again, chapter by chapter, document by document, just to catch if I’ve spelled “thought” as “tohguth.” Mac Office is even worse and stops counting words after 100 pages in addition to jacking up the spell check. Total crap, but my Microsoft rant is best left for another post.

I was a little dazed when I finished the seventh edit yesterday, so I’m not entirely sure if I’m on Chapter 2 or 3 at this point. I’ll pick Chapter 2 because you can’t read through the book enough times.

Current word count is 121,542 which I think is slightly higher than my previous update. Though I told myself that I was through with rewriting anything else in this edit, I ran into the same problems with the middle part of the book that I’ve re-re-re-written more than any other part of the book. What I find is that with each edit, I lose my emotional attachments to specific scenes.

In a previous edit, I’d gone back and retrieved a scene where Jessie Clarke and Brit have a major fight because I wanted so badly to show Jessie’s compassionate side. In the edit I just finished, I realized that Jessie really didn’t need to show that kind of compassion because Brit has enough compassion for the both of them. If I had 500k words to work with, I’d still probably include the scene, but given that it unnecessarily broke up the flow of the book, it had to get cut.

Of course, that scene was wrapped around a more pivotal scene where we see Damen really struggling with his mother’s addictions. What I ended up with was a completely re-written chapter where we see Angel balancing her problems with the love of her son, we finally see some imperfections in Anessa’s character, and we get to see Damen grow a little as he realizes that he’s not the only one in the world handling emotional problems. For the first time since I’d first finished the novel, I can actually say that I enjoy the events and flow of this chapter.

I’d figured I was done at this point since I’d not added to my word count, but then I came again to the chapter where we come to understand the root of Jessie Clarke’s character. I cried through the scene as I always do, but this time around the end was very flat to me. Jessie reveals a very long, painful story about her childhood and then when Damen refuses to divulge anything about himself, she just lets it go without showing the relative crazies Jessie displayed throughout the previous chapters.

Up until this point, I’d made very few changes to Jessie’s part of the story, but this time around, I added another 4-500 words to the book to make sure Jessie went ape-#$%@ when Damen did not do as she said, just as we’ve seen her do throughout the novel. I hated to add 500 words to the book to show all of this, but scene feels complete and really envelopes you in the pain that’s coursing through Jessie.

Apart from those two re-writes, the book felt really done for the first time since I thought I was done 15 months ago.

Now, my next steps will be to review general spelling and grammar through each chapter file and then make this into a Kindle book that I can read either on iPad or Kindle, like I would a normal book. The goal there will be to ensure that I don’t lose my own interest as I’m reading. Anywhere that I feel like it’s time to put down the book is a weak point of the novel and may need to be revised. Further painful revisions notwithstanding, once I do a Kindle-read through the book and print out and mail the whole thing for my Poor Man’s Copyright, I will finally begin my hunt for an agent.

Phew! It’s been a long ride. Onward and upward!

Dana and Damen Thursday, March 14, 2013

For the past three years I’ve have struggled with the character of Dana Barrington. From the moment her addition seemed providential inspired, I’ve wanted to keep her in the book. I’ve twisted and turned the story and 9 different directions in order to keep her, only to return to my initial conclusion made several years ago: I’ve got to cut Dana Barrington.

I’m in the midst of my 3rd full edit of Damen and found myself almost screaming in frustration over a slow point in the book. This slow point involves surrounds not only Dana, but also my other beloved character of Amber MacDonaugh. While extricating Amber from the plot is near impossible as she defines the characters of several others so well, removing Dana will not only free up a good 10K or more words from my word count, her removal will also leave me with a little more wiggle room to focus on other characters.

If I wasn’t so very fatigued at the moment, I’d probably cry, but I’m trying to stay positive. Dana is a fully shapened character now who, while not immediately useful in Damen, may possibly find a place in another project; she’s not lost forever, just to this story. While I’m losing my only link from Flight, perhaps in the long-run, this will keep me from getting sued down the line. Who knows, right?

The more I re-re-read and edit this book, the more necessary it is to cut her. In exchange, I will be able to keep nearly all of the drama regarding the college visit, including Xavier’s colourful speech regarding politics and I will be able to streamline the story. By downplaying Amber and removing Dana, the book rests on the shoulders of Damen, Brit, Corey, Jessie, Angel, Anthony, and Anthony’s family. It sounds like a lot because it is and winding Dana’s story within a host of characters who are already related was, while a noble and artistically challenging task, still unnecessary.

Phew…I feel better about this already. I stand at around 131K at the moment and I think I’ll stop with damen10g here in the 20-something’th chapter, begin with damen11h (or 11k, I don’t really like the letters h, i, or j) and get started editing this thing with the focus on removing Dana and reducing Amber.

Onward and upward!

Edit: So, in trying to completely cut Dana today, I came upon her introduction which not only provided an nice interlude that introduces us to one of Brit’s brothers, gives insight on Damen’s history with social workers, helps display more of Jessie Clarke’s character, and shows how Damen interacts with girls who aren’t Brit and Jessie. So, despite all my above clairvoyance, I’ll not be able to remove her as entirely as I’d hoped. I’ve done too good a job at entangling her with the rest of the story, but I’m determined with damen11h to ring in her character. Her scattering throughout the rest of the book just feels overwhelmingly desperate, so while she’ll still appear in her own chapter, her interaction with Damen will be more like that of Tabitha Laird or Tatum Price; mentioned once, serves her purpose and never mentioned again.
…I can’t help a little joy over the best compromise I’ve made with regard to writing in the longest while. 🙂

NaNoWriMo Day 1 – James of Avradel Friday, November 2, 2012

So, last night, shortly before midnight, I made up my mind to really craft a story from nothing so I could have something completely fresh for this writing excursion. Without being able to draw from characters or circumstance in Damen or Jill or even Evan, I stared at my laptop screen for several minutes before I decided to tell myself a story. And, so I started to just speak aloud to myself, “Once upon a time…there was a boy…who had a…magic…hat.” and so began this new story.

I spent close to 30 minutes writing whatever came out of my mouth until I had created the notes for a simple story and, while the overall message of this new tale is rather dark and a bit depressing, as a lot of my writing is want to be, I can’t help but be amused at what happens when I just let my imagination go.

This evening, I’ve written the first installment of my 30-day 50K non-project related novel writing and I have to say, I’m just tickled at what I’ve produced. With just some bare bones notes, I’ve created this magical world that’s complete with it’s own geography and gods and dragons and I only started on this at around 10:45 at night, finishing just a few minutes after midnight. In any other setting, I would have thrown out all of this before I’d even figured out a name for the boy or certainly at the moment I’d decided that “once upon a time” some boy had a magic hat of all things, but since this isn’t supposed to be some grand masterpiece to be studied long after I’m gone, I’m having such fun just letting my imagination do what it wants.

If I want there to be forests that grow in every colour – Bam! It’s done. If I want the ground to be gold and speckled with the blood of the “fallen” – Kazzam! I’ve got it. I can honestly say, I’ve not had quite this much fun writing a story since I was eight years old.

618 words! Saturday, August 25, 2012

I decided on a brand new drastic change for the novel today.

In what is currently Chapter 17, I’ve got this nice dialogue between Damen and Brit about God. Damen is an agnostic and Brit is a Christian and they argue about God’s will. The rest of the chapter details Damen’s attendance in Brit’s church as well as a brief visit in Sunday School. I edited the conversation between Brit and Damen and continued with the rest of the chapter.

It was not until I was nearly done with the chapter that it occurred to me that this conversation was way over the head of my character Brit Leighson. It is very clear that I am speaking through my character in this scene and while I still want to get across my message, it sounds false coming from Brit. It sounds as if I’m pigeonholing her into a personification of myself, which is what I really don’t want to do.

I thought about this for a while. “Who should have this argument with Damen without it sounding trite or false?” Finally, it occurred to me that it should be Damen vs. the Sunday School teacher Ms. LaRoe, who I’ve not yet given a first name, even though I know she’ll also feature in Jill. I started to rewrite both scenes, but in minutes, I hit Undo and let what I had stand because it looked like too much work to edit. It ate at me though until I finally took a new document and started writing and deleting and writing and deleting until I had the precise scene I wanted with Damen and Ms. LaRoe.

I looked at my new creation and was immediately disheartened. Here I am trying to reduce word count, but my new scene looked almost twice as long as the original text. I started to throw away what I’d written, but I shook my head and looked at the word count for the original scene. 618 words. I frowned and figured as long as the new scene was only 200 or so words more, I’d figure out what else I could cut to make it fit. To my absolute shock, the new scene was exactly 618 words. I was so shocked by this that I had to screenshot it to believe it was real!

I know there’s some editing to do for this part of the chapter, but still! Whoo boy! This is the kind of coincidence that makes you want to go to church and have “Hallelujah good time!”

From there to here Wednesday, August 22, 2012

I think I may finally understand why I want to badly to keep the character of Dana Barrington in Damen.

It occurred to me just after I reviewing yesterday’s post, but I wanted to sleep on it and take a break from writing to be really sure of what I want to do, which is remove Amber’s suicide attempt, but I’ll get to that part later.
Here is an except from Flight and all that I ever wrote of Dana Barrington’s character in that book:

Olivia stepped off the elevator on her floor and trekked toward her apartment door, weighed down by the stacks of files in her bag and those being carried under her arm. All of the documents and images that pertained to Dana Barrington’s rape case were in her possession and she was scheduled to testify at the trial the next day. She knew she was ready for the trial as she had testified at many previous to this one, but she hauled everything home to review just as a comfort to herself.

Dana Barrington was a high school student who had been brought into a hospital after being found bleeding profusely in an alley. She had attempted to perform an abortion on herself with a wire hanger and nearly killed herself in the process. After she was admitted, the detectives learned that she had been raped several months earlier and that she could not tell anyone about what had happened to her. Dana had said that she was too embarrassed to say anything because she had walked home alone and she knew she should not have.

The rapist, Gregory Lars, had been apprehended by the DNA provided by Dana’s baby who was born premature, but healthy, two months later. Lars had been preying on adolescent girls in the city for years, but it was only with this case that they had the DNA needed to convict him.

On Friday, Olivia was supposed to testify about Lars’ behavior when he was finally caught. She had no qualms about testifying in front of Lars, who had actually hit her in the stomach while she had him against a wall, but her nerves were slightly on edge when it came to facing the victim again. Dana’s large brown eyes displayed nothing but innocence and she knew only too well that a child born to a raped victim, especially one as young as Dana, would not be as loved as he could be. She knew that upon seeing Dana in court, she would want to tell her what was coming in her life and what she should tell her son as he grew up, but she knew she could not. It was not her place to do so.

…

Friday January 19, 2007
New York County Courthouse

Olivia stood in a corridor outside of the courtroom where she had just testified against Gregory Lars looking for Dana Barrington and her family. When it seemed like she had missed them in the bustle of people flowing out of the courtroom at recess just before noon, Olivia spotted a sixteen-year-old with brown hair and large brown eyes holding a baby carrier.

“Olivia!” Dana said, the moment her eyes reached Olivia’s.

She handed the baby to her mother standing next to her, crossed the corridor in three steps and hugged Olivia.

“Thank you,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you so much.”

“It’s no problem. It’s what I do.”

…and that’s it. That’s all I wrote about Dana Barrington’s character in Flight, so I’ve been so puzzled why this character in particular has caused me so much stress in the past couple years, but finally! Finally, I think I know why.

Dana’s story is brief, but very sad. Here she was, a young college bound girl, with almost no problems at all and, through no fault of her own, she was attacked and impregnated. Dana did what I considered I would have done had I been in her situation and pretended it didn’t happen until the problem, literally, grew too big for her to ignore.

When I think of this character, I feel like I need to see her through this. I need to see that she’s happy and healthy and that life goes on. Not because I’ve personally experienced this, but because I just need to know that at least somewhere, life goes on.

Yes, I know that these are fictional characters of my own making, but I feel them and know them as if these were people I could touch. For the same reason, I couldn’t really understand the ending of my novel until I realized where Corey could get his comeuppance (much, much later and in a completely different book) because I just couldn’t leave things the way they were. I needed to see life go on and these characters move forward, even though I wouldn’t be writing about them after I’d moved them on.

So…

I’ve decided to leave Dana firmly in the background along with others who just briefly see light like Tatum and Paige and Tabitha. Amber, however, won’t be pushed to the background, but she won’t have nearly as large a part to play anymore. Instead, I’ve decided to pull Damen’s mother Angel into the foreground where she belongs and use her drama to provide the conflict. In short, I’m completely changing the plot of my novel well into my second edit.

It’s not as bad as it sounds, though. Yes, there will be far more scene rewrites than I wanted at this stage in the novel, but in the process of just reviewing my “points” and chapter summaries, I’ve nixed 3 chapters and removed several smaller storylines that irked because they were originally necessary to avoid plot holes.

I prayed about this last night and asked God if this was really what He wanted of me. Not just the novel changes, but the idea of writing at all. Today, my emotions have run the gamut, from hot/cold, east/west, whatever, but I ended up with a clear path.

I’m not sure I’m willing claim any of this as providential inspiration because God works in mysterious ways and I think it a bit too bold say something like that, but I can’t help noticing how when I really, really asked for help, a calm path came to me.

Chipping away Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I’ve brought the book down by another 1100 words tonight. To be honest, I’d hoped to be into the 150s by now, but I’m chipping away at these chapters little by little. Since I’ve still got 30 chapters left to scrutinize, hopefully I’ll find a way to keep up the 1000-word cut per chapter for a while longer.

I remember reading somewhere (a blog or an article, or it’s possible I just made it up) that cutting parts of my story should hurt (maybe it was something about editing films…). The more I love it, the more it should get cut. I immediately shook my head when I saw read heard came across this because it just sounds too hard.

How can you cut something you love? I love the fingers on my left hand because they’re double-jointed, but I can’t imagine the pain of cutting those either. So, I’m left to wonder what I’ll do when I starve this novel down to almost bare bones, but I’m still over 120K. And 120K is still far over the upper end for most first-time authors. I’ve read that the book should really be no more than 100K, but I knew I’d never get this down to 100K from the moment I thought up my protagonist.

I suppose I can just pray that someone, somewhere will want to pick up this long-winded book and, perhaps, between the lengths of your Twilights and your Fire and Ices and the fact that eBooks are thriving, no one will really care about the length of my story when I’m done, as long as I’ve written well.

A vacation Saturday, July 7, 2012

Between spotty power and even spottier Internet service for the past few days, I’ve used this week as an overall vacation from my second job. Everyone needs a vacation right?

Aside from wondering if it was possible for my skin to actually catch fire in these multiple 100-degree days, I’ve been reading a little. I started my umpteenth re-read of Persuasion, officially began my first read of Pride and Prejudice and continued with Darth Bane: Rule of Two. Whether I’m reading Austen or Star Wars books, I still feel like a geek when I read a lot; a proud geek, that is.

Being on “vacation” this week, I’ve not kept to any specific schedule with regard to this edit, but I’ve been able to cut about a thousand words from the first 3 chapters. At this rate, however, I’ll maybe get it down another 13K, if that, which means I’ve got to take another approach at this.

I’ll finish up the fourth chapter this evening since I’m already in the middle of it, but I think I’ll just sit and scan through the entirety of the book tomorrow and list all the “events” of each chapter as if I’m writing my own SparkNotes entry. This way, I can quickly determine which parts are superfluous and make large, but poignant cuts in proper places, rather than keep reading and reading only to trim a word or two from every other paragraph.

At this point in the book, it’s not the prose that’s causing the length, but portions of the story that have got to go. As my short term memory is notoriously shot, the only way I’ll be able to make this edit a success is to completely change the way I’m editing. I suppose that old saying holds true in that if I continue to do the same thing over and over, I’ll never get different results. Expecting different results from that is also a sign of insanity, says Einstein…but that’s a subject for a different post.

30-Day 5K – Day Nineteen Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I may have written the finest 400 words of my life (to date) this evening. I love when I have that sensation while writing; the thought that not only am I in “the zone,” but that what I’m writing has some meaning, some depth.

Still though…it’s taken me far over word count. Ugh…word count…

This evening, the delights of strong prose aside, it occurred to me that, while I’m down to 183K words, I’ve less than 100 pages left for me to edit in this file. Estimating about 5-600 words a page and I’ve got more words to edit from the book, than I have words remaining. It’s a very discouraging thought and this means, for certain, that I’ll have to do a whole new edit before I can have a file that I can proudly call a first draft.

I know I wasn’t as fierce with my Delete key in the first 10 or so chapters, so that leaves me with a bit of peace on this endeavour and, if I really focus, I’m sure I can knock down at least another 10K from now until I reach the end of the book, but still…a whole new wave of edits is very daunting.

The good news is that I’m already resigned to the fact that I’ll not be able to start sending this until September, which should give me some wiggle room and a chance to even tell myself I’m “ahead” of schedule if I’m ready some time in August.

Still though…a whole new wave of edits…

Oh well…I wrote 6932 words this evening (All I can remember is before and after) and tomorrow I’ll start Chapter 30. I suppose I can hang my hopes on the fact that I’ve never been this close to creating a publishable work in my life and I’m only weeks (albeit, many of them) away from completely my goal.

30-Day 5K – Day Ten Sunday, June 10, 2012

Well, my plan from yesterday worked; Chapter 27 ended with 4647 words, a couple hundred below the limit, which means that I may have a new mechanism in place for getting through the rest of these chapters.

I rewrote and edited 7806 words today (the middle of reading Animal Farm again). This could have been more, but after pushing myself to church today and spending most of the afternoon trying to troubleshoot my “TV” laptop again (Seriously, though…), I only got started a little after 8:30pm today.

Chapter 28, at first glance, looks very promising in that this will be the first chapter where I’ll be happy to make edits. I knew it was far too long when writing it, but this chapter delves into some interesting politics from multiple sides, which allows me to play devil’s advocate with myself, while trying to prevent my own politics from coating the book too much. Not to mention, I know I’ll have a lot to cut, and at 190K words, I might just push myself into the 170s if I focus.

I’m beginning to see light at the end of this dark tunnel of editing and I may even be able to keep all plot points I’d wanted by the end, too.

30-Day 5K – Day Seven Thursday, June 7, 2012

Goodness, I hate Thursdays. I think it’s because I’m so tired after Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday that I really need Thursday to be Friday, but when I wake up and realize that it’s not actually Friday, I get depressed and the whole day sours before I even get out of the bed.

I wrote 5760 words this evening (but neither Brit nor Damen laughed with her) and I know if I pushed a little, I could have probably wrote a bit more, but today being Thursday and all, I’m tired and ready to just play Rock Band and then veg on the sofa.

Some of this fatigue is coming from just looking at the amount of editing this chapter needs. Once again, my problem comes from the desire to “show” but the need to “tell.” Somehow, I’ve got to make peace between to the two to save the word count, especially since I’ve “shown” so much about something that is really just a peripheral story.

I’ll figure it all out tomorrow, I suppose, when I’m less tired and more willing to take my literary axe to this chapter and make meaningful, but concise. For now, however, I’ll concede to the Rock Banding (yes, that’s a word) session I’ve earned this week.

Edit: I knew I wouldn’t remember this until the WordPress Dashboard mentioned it. I can’t believe I’ve done 400 posts in this thing! Woot!

30-Day 5K – Day Five Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Well, it’s finally happened.

I knew that I’d reach a point in this novel where the writing was tight enough that there would be very little to cut and I’ve reached it.

I wrote and edited 6939 words tonight (even think to add this to her book) and, even after doing two reads over this chapter and splitting into two, I’ve still had little to edit, which means that after I finish this edit, I’ll have to cut even more from the beginning chapters to keep what really is important.

My success for tonight, however, (since I’d like to think I’ve succeeded in at least one thing) was in re-writing the scene where Anthony quite literally, throws Damen from the house a little more realistic with regard to Anessa’s reaction. Previously, Damen showed up battered at Brit’s house and then the family tries to continue with dinner until it becomes necessary to react, but this time around, I’ve added a “What would I do if this happened to me today” thought process to the scene and now, it no longer feels so forced.

So, cheers to me for making my 5K word count today and here’s praying that I can figure out how to cut another 80K words out of this book before August.

30-Day 5K – Day Two Saturday, June 2, 2012

For the past couple days, I’ve been musing over Dana Barrington’s character a lot. A quick search on this blog shows I’ve been rather perplexed by her character for a very long time as I’ve gone back and forth, hopelessly trying to come to a decision on her.

Some days I think I’ve got her purpose all figured out and then a few months later, everything is muddy again. I’d figure out a reason to keep her, but then decide to nix that reason and wonder if I should even bother with it.

I suppose the only reason I’ve even given her any thought at all is because I want to keep this whole “Dorienne Universe” going and I’d like it to start with Flight, not with Damen. If I got rid of Dana Barrington, I’d lose my link back to Flight and I really, really wanted all of these stories to link together in some way.

So, this has been my thought process over the week as I pondered on Dana’s purpose in Damen, since, as far as word count goes, she is the most expendable character I’ve got given that her presence has little to do with the overall story…had that is.

I’ve had another conundrum while writing this book which is that it has been missing some of the intrigue that I knew I had with Flight. With Flight, there was all this mystery around my unnamed murderer and also around what had actually happened to Olivia and I know those parts moved along the whole book. Damen had none of that, but I think I’ve finally got it and best of all, it surrounds my character Dana Barrington.

I mention this because I’ve come to this place so often with regard to Dana, where I finally figure out a reason to keep her despite a zillion reasons to nix her, and I think this will just be really funny to me months later when I have to end up cutting her anyway.

I wrote 7592 words today (ten seconds later: no prob damen-mon) and read through what will be the 24th chapter; all 13K words of it. Tomorrow’s endeavour will be to trim all the fluff down to 5K or split the chapter and focus on cutting more in Chapter 25.

All in all, I’ve cut the book down to 199K, leaving me with just another 80-90K to trim, but at least I’m pushing…

And just like that Saturday, September 3, 2011

I was in the midst of streamlining my notes today in preparation for “full” writing when I had an epiphany on “paper” and didn’t even realize it until much, much later.

You may not like him, but he’s at least principled enough to be who he is. And just like that, a question that has been bugging me since I first conceived of this project is answered. Why does Damen spend time with Corey? What does he see in this character? What drives him to seek out his friendship? What quality could he possibly possess that would overshadow all of the bad ones? Of course, there is far more to the relationship than just that statement, but it goes a long way to, at the very least, help me understand both characters a little better.

I’m a bit hungry now, so there’s not much else for me to say about today other than I’m not looking forward to spending my Sunday at first-job.

I wrote 1289 words today (Brit did not follow him.) and I’m really hoping that I can keep up my pace of setting up all my notes the previous night so that the writing moves very smooth the next day. I was going to stop whenever I reached a 500-ish word count, but the desire to finish the scene was more powerful and I think that’s how I should look at this going forward. Instead of writing to just word counts, though I’ll still do this to some degree, I’m going to focus on writing complete thoughts and scenes, which should reduce the need for ridiculous editing of what I’d rambled about in 500-word nuggets across a week.