AFDOC 25: Second Revision

Mobile's 100+ temperatures weren't the only thing on fire this week. I got over 50 hours of revisions into AFDOC. I'm trying out a new idea I've been mulling over for months. Keeping it all in first person, I'm fooling around {a great Southern expression that says so much} with new tenses and chapter grounding ideas. I'm constantly amazed at how much freedom I'm giving myself to cut and rearrange, which hopefully means I'm on the right path to bringing this baby on home in the next six months.

A creative writing class I took some time ago - and much I've read since - strongly advises that at this critical juncture in novel revision I should be able to write four succinct statements that define the book. It took me eight pages of handwritten notes to get it done, but it's right on target I hope. Note the decisiveness in that strong statement. It's a clear outline for me to follow to make sure every scene in every chapter speaks directly to one of the four statements and should be helpful as I take the revision process one or two or a hundred steps deeper into analysis - which I may need years of when this over.

As I ponder the Deep South in the post World War II period and finalize {an hilarious word when it comes to writing} the novel, I send you wishes for a Fourth of July replete with fried chicken, potato salad, boiled corn, butter beans, sliced tomatoes, onion & cucumbers marinated in vinegar, deviled eggs, and watermelon for dessert.

Mahala

AFDOC 22: FINISHED

The first revision of many, many to come is finished! I feel like I gave birth to triplets this past week - exhausted, exhilirated, exposed. I guess the downtime I had last week was a subsconscious time of rest for the final push. Never have I been more determined to get something to its conclusion. But least I get caught with my rose-colored glasses growing to my face, I know the REAL work is just beginning - lots to cut, polish, add, and clarify - but I have 547 pages of novel with my name on it!!!!! No one - not the most evil editor in the world - can take that away. Remind me I wrote that last sentence when I'm mired in disillusionment a year from now trying to find an agent and a publisher.


I have taken many creative classes in the university setting, on-line, in small mentoring groups, etc. but absolutely nothing prepared me for the actual work. No teacher or class or group or whatever could possibly have shown me what I was too naive to learn. You have got to do it, and as Darnell Arnoult, author of Sufficient Grace, taught in a workshop: once you finish writing your book, it's time to study writing in earnest and read as many how-to-write books as you can get your hands on. All the classes and notes and excercises come together after you've written the book. It finally begins to make sense.


Now, don't misunderstand me. You need to study the craft of writing, so you have a meaningful plot {mine came to me five years into the writing of the book which also happened to Faulkner, V. Wolfe, and R. P. Warren, so I'm in good company.} Add to that knowing POV, the King's English, grammar and punctuation, how to cast your characters, and so forth which are must knows before you start, or your revisions will take longer than writing the book. I recently read that S. King writes a 150 page or so outline before he starts a book, then just fills in the blanks. I wondered if he started that way. That would have been impossible for me this first go around.


I did some outlining, defined character traits for the main characters {thanks Tracy for a cheat sheet of an easy way to do that,} did an enormous amount of research on the fifties, and did a chronological outline since I knew the story would cover one year, but otherwise I followed my Writing Angel and wrote what she told me and always {well almost} always in Caroline's voice. That's pronounced Caro - line (as in a line of diagolue), and I wrote some days like a madwoman {cj's term.} I'm pretty sure I've graduated from Tinker Toys to an Erector Set.


So right now I'm feeling cocky on the outside and a little squeamish on the inside, but I know, absolutely know, I can do this.

Now, if someone will publish it. Have a producive week writing. Mahala

AFDOC 15

What a week this has been! Got 5 contest entries in and worked on AFDOC every day. I've always known I had a bit too much backstory, and I had moved some of it to active but didn't get the nod from my critique group, so I went back to the drawing board. Unfortunately, as in real life where I can't draw a stick figure, my writing drawing board was in a foul mood this week and all I produced was more backstory. I know how and why I want them to tie into the overall plot and drive the characters' personalities and decisions, but my brain wasn't in sort mode this week, so they're sitting on the page waiting for me to make a decision. Very painful to hit the now-what? wall so hard I couldn't even bounce but slid down it into a pile of pure-T frustration.


I pulled out David Madden's book Revising Fiction to get some serious studying done, but alas, it was not to be. I read the excellent passages and advice and repeatedly went outside and sat my not-so-usually-lazy butt down in spring fever mode and enjoyed all the green and pink and white in my yard while the cool breezes blew.




A 1950s reminder of what happened when the "tube" went to sleep for the night - apparently I'm in this mode because I can hear the humming in the background.

Mahala