Apologies for posting this a little late – it’s a bank holiday weekend here and I’ve been really busy with various events!
This week my writing time has been spent almost entirely on two things – this blog and the novel. The reason is that the revision of the novel has become much more complicated than expected.
The new sections have led to putting more emphasis on areas I deliberately didn’t explore too much, and I am not convinced this is a Good Thing. I will have to see how this pans out: I try to let the writing flow naturally so if a few phrases lead me down a new path I’ll go with it, and rein it in if necessary when I do my next read-through, but I don’t want to be working on this forever so at some point will have to stop exploring new elements!
Writing the new sections is taking more time than expected. I was thinking they would take roughly a couple of days each, because I knew what they have to cover and I know the characters well so they were just an additional few scenes, but each one is currently around 3000 (and the longest is over 4000) words so they have become short chapters in their own right – the short missing ideas decided to bring a few of their friends to the party… By the end I’ll probably have added over 15,000 extra words!
If you remember my NaNoWriMo experience, I wrote 25,000 words in a month, so I can write that much – but this is much more complex than simply writing a new story. For example, I have to remember where timeshifts occur in relation to the new sections, so have to measure out how long things may take to fit them into one or two week periods. I also have to make sure that any plot points I add that weren’t there before are not lost but are subsequently incorporated into the later chapters. I am glad I am writing onto a computer now, as the document tracking is extremely helpful!
It’s really good to do it all in order, so I know where I am in the story, but it does mean I can’t quickly edit anything! I know it’s only my own timetable that I risk failing to meet, but that doesn’t matter – it’s a date that was theoretically achievable so I feel like I’m letting myself down if I don’t meet my target.
Fingers crossed I’ll find some extra writing mojo for the next week!
In other news – I read an interesting news story this week. Some of you may have seen the story of an elderly woman in Spain who attempted to restore a 19th Century church painting. This story has really caught my attention for a few reasons, and one of those is the tale it tells – a forgotten piece, neglected and uncared-for, is finally given some attention and it goes wrong: suddenly the piece had world-wide recognition; the descendants of the artist are called upon to share their feelings on the action – despite not knowing the artist personally, and the woman who tried to fix it ends up under threat of legal action… There are so many ways of approaching a story like this that for any writer it’s a great inspiration piece to cut out and keep somewhere.
I am keeping it short this week so I can get back to the novel, so will leave it there. Hopefully I’ll be back on track soon and laughing about my minor panic of the last week…
Happy writing
EJ
🙂
Becoming a writer 
I love reading the chaotic thoughts of other writers (: It reminds me I’m not alone with my thoughts of time frames and word counts and blog posts.
Yes, this does feel like a really chaotic time, but knowing there’s a lot of us in the same boat definitely makes me feel more comfortable!
EJ 🙂
really informative post, i am truly happy to post my comment on your blog. i’m glad that you shared this helpful info with us.
thank you 🙂
Great post. I tried Nanowrimo once and I got the 50,000 words done in the month (right at the end!). Anyway, that was the first time that I had really ran into length timing issues of plots and key-points etc, because everything I had ever done prior to that was short story format. I didn’t do the Nanowrimo one in any order at all, I just couldn’t write it like that. Maybe I’m just more cut out for the shorter format!
I’m impressed you got to 50,000 words done, I had no chance at all! So many people seem to do all the plotting before they start, I should have seen straight away I’d missed a trick! I was hoping to finish the story but haven’t so far – maybe I’ll dig it out and do the next 25,000 this November…
EJ 🙂
It does take a lot of time to tie up loose ends in novels. I reworked my latest a few months ago thinking ‘it’ll only take me a few days’ – not!
I found the story of the lady fixing the painting highly intriguing as well. Great post – thanks for sharing 🙂
Yes, I always find I get a lot done in the last two or three days, compared to the first few!
EJ 🙂
[…] also come across some fabulous little stories – for example, you may remember in week 54 I talked about the woman in Spain who had painted over a picture of Jesus very badly. Well this […]