IWSG Wednesday in Autumn, Yay!

IWSG

The awesome co-hosts for the October 7 posting of the IWSG will be TB Markinson, Tamara Narayan, Shannon Lawrence, Stephanie Faris, and Eva E. Solar!
 

I want to post today on writing this IWSG Wednesday, because that’s what’s on my mind. Sometimes I take a break during the editing phase of a WIP because I get to a point where I need to research the scene/part I’m working on to give it that “ring of believability/authenticity”. Here’s where it gets tricky. I LOVE LOVE LOVE research. Sometimes I wish that was all I had to do, like being someone’s research assistant! My first novel was over 700 pages because I was soooo in love with the results of my research I just had to add all those interesting (to me) bits in. My mentor was like, “Research Lover! You need to cut this word count by more than half.”

OH NO! That was a mountain to me, like Everest. No way could I cut that much. Yeah way. I did, and good thing too. Anyone who made it past the first chapter would have been bored to death.

Now when I research, I hunt until I find everything I think I might possibly need. I work in what—at first take—looks like will fit. Then I work 70% of it back out again.

Using Mary Burton’s  “One Draft at a Time” Checklist, I usually do this in Draft 3. Why not in the First Draft? Because I’m getting the story down and I need to know my characters before I put that much into setting, dialog, motivation, etc. I have also found that hunting for “people-in-the-know”, experts by any other name, is completely fascinating and a great way to meet new people.

So, that’s my little blip on the “writing” subject today.

What do you do when you want “believ-ability?” Have you met cool experts? How much time do you spend on research and do you put it in and take it out again? Do you hate it or love it?

Images from:

www.summitpost.org

www.actbucks.org.uk 

mission0ps.com 

www.snapsurveys.com 

IWSG for February

http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

Join all of us Insecure Writers for our monthly support blog if you so wish. You can find a list of all the blogs participating in the link below the IWSG image... A hearty thanks goes out to our co-hosts this month...Sheena-kay Graham, Julie Musil, Jamie Ayres, and Mike Swift

Hello All, Sorry my post is late today but here it is none the less. I wanted to share the last month of my writing life with you, to share the “slog” of the “One Draft At a Time” check list that I am following, for the first time, on my current work in progress. Slog is such a descriptive word and for a writer, not a bad one. It says it all.

Mary Burton, www.maryburton.com , author of numerous works, mostly romantic suspense, gave a workshop that I attended last October. Her workshop was based on the One Draft At a Time system that she developed and uses herself. It is a thorough and thought-provoking process that has me at times pulling hair, because it involves a lot of “slogging” through, but you have to pay such attention to detail that I hope to find, at the end, that it has all been worth it! This is WORK! But writing does, eventually, come down to just that, work. Mary uses a six or seven draft system where you use each draft to check on only one thing, like a certain word, or whether the structure is good, or if the story flows. Each of these steps has their own draft. Of course there is much more to it than that, but I can’t go into details because it is her copy-written process and I honor that. Being somewhat uninspired right now, yet determined, I thought the journey I'm on a perfect subject to write of today. I hope (REALLY) to find at the end, that the process, the road map she has laid before me, will lead me to the destination that I seek. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to slog through until I know I have produced the best work I possibly can.What about you? Do you have a set process you use to edit/revise? Thanks for dropping by!

Image from:

www.lovelifepractice.com

Sharing in November

Our posts this month are themed “Sharing” on the Write...Edit...Publish Blogfest   which is hosted monthly by Denise Covey. Our list is growing, so if you’d like to participate, or just visit and read, click on the link!

This month I’ve noticed that many folks have shared the traditions that they follow with their families on  Thanksgiving. I thought about our traditions and found we don’t have too many. When it comes to food, my mother makes dressing and fights with my brother-in-law about who makes the turkey. (LOL!) My bro-in-law is a great cook, so is my mother and my “other” dad and so we always eat well during the holidays. But we don’t have traditions in that we do the same thing every year. Take this year, my husband and I will stay home and celebrate “the” day with very dear friends who are adopted family. And so, we will discover new things to do, new things to eat and it will be a new way of celebrating what we are thankful for.

Mary Burton and me

I’m looking forward to it because I’ve spent the vast majority of this month right here, in front of this computer, spewing words in a daily feast of creation, producing, as Mary Burton calls it, my “sloppy draft” of a new novel. The last few years I’ve spent revising two novels. This is the first sloppy draft I’ve done in way too long. I thank the month of November and those who help put together NaNoWriMo, so that I could profit from it this year. I was afraid of it. Thought it would be too difficult to put 50,000 words down in one month.  I am proud to share with you that I was very, very wrong. I’m now at 75,666 words and today is the 30^th day of the month. This story flowed from me with an ease that makes me know it was meant to be told. I put the speed of the writing down in part to the conference I went to in October (battery recharge), to the workshop giving by Mary Burton and the fact that I actually wrote an outline of what I thought I could do with the month of November before I started the actual writing.

Mary Burton, Author

In this month of sharing, I am aware of being thankful, truly grateful, for the chance to write as I love to write, to have a family I cherish, friends whom I love and who love me, and that even when I find something to worry about (I’m a serial worrier), I am deeply blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving. May you each be encircled with happiness and love... and, if you need some lovin’ and happiness, I don’t mind sharing. You’re welcome to some of mine!

Images from: 

maryinhb.blogspot.com

gblibraries.org