Showing posts with label revision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label revision. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

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!
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Thursday, April 04, 2013

Develop


Okay, instead of writing about developing a character or a scene, today I write about the development of a writer and developing a first draft, which are in some ways the same. Both begin a journey somewhere and travel an unknown road.
The first draft. How do you write yours? I’m one of those who begin with an idea. Sometimes the idea is a person.  I also start an outline, especially if I’m going to have a lot of characters and action in the story, which I don’t always know in the beginning. But I like the idea of an outline so I start one.  I then write, sometimes longhand, sometimes on the computer, and expound upon my idea or person until a story begins to take shape. I like this process but hate the stopping and starting of writing that is necessary at this point because I must find the road I’m looking for. I don’t always know in the beginning where the idea/person will take me, but even when I do, finding the way is sometimes difficult because I’m thinking, “we’ll take a left up ahead,” but then we take a right and the story shifts in a different direction than I thought it would. I think that’s why an outline is good. It is the road map I begin with even if I rarely stay with it all the way through. I just need the guide at the start to help me get moving. Then I write until I get to the end, but not always in a linear fashion. Often I write scenes and then put them together after, but I always go until I get to the end. Then I put it away and do something else for a while. When I come back to it, I’m ready to revise, revise, and revise. Am I crazy because I love that part?


As a writer my development has been good but slow, I think. I write but don’t always write well and that is my challenge. To write well. I don't kid myself. I am more of a simplistic writer than fancy. I love to tell a story but don't have to be a "literary" writer. One of the A to Z blogs I read yesterday used “boring” as her B theme and as I read her post I realized that I fight being a boring writer on a daily basis. It’s fine to put words to paper, but if no one likes to read them, it doesn’t matter what you write. So, my back seat drivers, a persistent little devil (self doubt) and unwavering little angel (cheerleader), keep me looking for new roads, new ways to imagine and articulate things, how to express myself and how best to encourage my readers to accompany me on my journey. 
Ray Bradbury perfected this art to brilliancy. Can’t count how many times I’ve wished I was him!  

Ray Bradbury

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