I am standing with 8k words in my hands, wondering if it’s good enough. This is no doubt, not an uncommon process or issue for writers. So let me tell you about how I got here.

I sent out my first chapter to about 5 people. I figured that since I’m happily on the 5th Chapter and I still wish to get earlier chapters podcast it was about time in the process to do a final edit and get it out to the voice actors. Hence the need for a few beta readers.

Each person I sent it to had some issues with my first chapter. One person in particular helped me see that I was showing the opposite of what I’d intended with my main character. This left a hearty but not impossible re-write. InkGypsy, who’s become a big supporter and very helpful, calmed some of the stress. No, I didn’t need to trash it and start all over. Yes, it could be fixed with a bit of change here and there. It was all going to be ok.

So for the last week or two I’ve been mulling over how to fix Chapter 1. Then upon talking with someone else, I realize….we might not be getting into the action soon enough. There might not be enough uf in my first chapter. Suddenly everything I have written looks extraneous and do I need to cut out large chunks of what I’ve written or do I keep it and some small change can keep it salvagable? *sounds of screams and much head holding*

My thought is…if I cut out a large amount of what I’ve written to make things happen faster….isn’t that just making a book into a short story? I want to avoid doing that. It’s a novel I’m writing not a 5k word short.

Sadly, there is no resolution to my questions yet. This post is about my process and I haven’t found the answer yet. But I felt it was good to get this out here as I’m sure there are a few others of you right now holding your heads and sighing. We aren’t lost. We’ll discover the way out.

I do however, want to leave you with a few good links I’ve found:
A Novel in Three Acts Pt 1 – Stacia Kane
A Novel in Three Acts Pt 2 – Stacia Kane
A Novel in Three Acts Pt 3 – Stacia Kane
The Fear of Writing
Holly Lisle’s Think Sideways Course

Listen

The difference is seriously amazing and you’ll be able to see how since I recorded up to chapter 3 in third person before I decided it needed to be changed. Later after Nano is done I’ll post them and you’ll see the incredible difference.

Techniquely I only wrote 664 extra words after editing and adding. It’s hard to say how much extra I wrote considering I didn’t keep count of how much I deleted. But I am fairly happy with myself because I did several things today I was proud of. I wrote down 3/4th’s of the plot points for the story so I know where I’m going for a decent amount. I took the laptop downstairs to write while I waited for pizza to be delievered. And I wrote for 3 hours to make up some of my word count. Tomorrow I will need to try and write 4375 words to be caught up to my quota. If I’m a little behind I don’t think that will be a big deal. As long as I write.

Since tomorrow is Wednesday. I should be able to write a fair amount of the day as it’s my free day.

A friend of mine edited the impromtu podcast I did the other day in my chat room. So I may be putting it up shortly. Keep an eye out for it.

• too much exposition
• what we want from a critter
• planning out series
• action vs thriller
• who’s the real villan
• solving the problem
• keep the problem short (internal and external)

As an aside I am looking for people for future podcasts after Nano is over. If you are interested in being part of the following podcasts get in touch with me.

• Stories you’d like critique
• What you learned from Nano
• What you look for from critiquers

However, something I did do to help me figure out where I needed to be each day number wise was figure out the total number of words written each day until Nov 30th. The following list of numbers is what your word count should be.

1      1667
2      3334
3      5001
4      6668
5      8335
6    10002
7     11669
8     13336
9     15003
10   16670
11    18337
12    20004
13    21671
14    23338
15    25005
16    26672
17    28339
18    30006
19    31673
20    33340
21    35007
22    36674
23    38341
24    40008
25    41675
26    43342
27    45009
28    46676
29    48343
30    50010

Hope that helps!

Today’s finished word count by 2am (no I didn’t do it by 12 but it’s just now the end of the day for me) is 2012 words! Finished Chapter 1. Now on to Chapter 2.

And I’ll say it one more time. I LOVE my handy book of exspressive phrases, “The Romance Writers Phrase Book.” Everyone needs one. Go get it!

It was almost impossible for me to start off last night. I looked at the blank paper for probably 15 mins before I could just write. I’d already decided how I wanted the book to start out (though I hadn’t figured out if I wanted some kind of prologue or not) and I knew a good deal of the road I needed to travel. So why couldn’t I get going?

My first stumble was deciding if I needed to format it like you are suppose to do. You know the first page is blank but for the title and author name, pages are double spaced, etc. Finally I decided that since I was using google docs (in order to be able to share it with a few people) I wasn’t going to see the page breaks so that didn’t make much sense. So I put the name of the book at the very top, hopped a few lines and watched the curser blink.

Now what? I didn’t know my heroine’s name. Over the course of thinking about my plot I’d given her a few names but even those weren’t strong enough for me to even be able to remember them. I can’t start the book without knowing her name. So I pulled up a webpage of female baby names and clicked around until I finally settled on Ragan. I liked the name because it wasn’t typical and it had a strength to it that made me invision a strong character. This was a girl who didn’t take much crap, was fairly confident, maybe a little skeptical in a world even she had to admit was a little weird since she is infact an Empath. Ok…we can write.

No we can’t. *sigh* I had some friends in my chat room telling me, just start writing. Even if you are writing about the room you are in….’just start writing’. But it has to have a cool hook to the first sentence. I can’t start out “Ragan sat in a chair”. Who’d want to keep reading that?? And for that matter, I didn’t know I wanted to start with her sitting in a cramped van for that matter. It needed to cooler then that.

‘Don’t think, just write. Don’t edit, just write.’ From the people to my chat room, to the Nano posts flooding my email; everyone said just write. Don’t edit what you are writing, just write. Ok fine, but it’s not going to be good. *arms crossed stubbornly*

And so I started. But not even five words into the first sentence I was stuck. She was sitting in a chair and I was struggling to find the right words to describe it. I had an image of what I meant and I couldn’t pull the words out of my head. It needed to be described right or it would be interesting. ‘Wait, hold up. You’re doing it again.’ Oh yeah…I’m just suppose to write. I can go back later and describe the damn chair to my hearts content. It doesn’t matter that she was in a “chair” just so long as I had the basic thought to expand on LATER!! *sigh* Ok but you really won’t like this story. Even I don’t like this story. *firmly set mouth, eyes full of resentful doubt*

I got about 3 paragraphs written before my mind went blank. Ragan had shut the door and refused to tell me anymore for right now. So I re-read what I’d written. I didn’t FULLY edit!! I didn’t actually erase anything and in a few places added a few words giving a bit more depth. I felt ok about it. But they still didn’t want to flow. Ok I counted my words. This is all about words right?? 187. That didn’t seem right. So I spent about five minutes actually counting each word. Anyone see the problem? Yeah alright fine. I’m doing it again! *pout*

I tried to figure out what I wanted to say. I obviously wasn’t happy at only having written 187 words. I’m suppose to hit 1667 today at least. Trying to remember it didn’t have to be perfect I started again until I got another 100 words down. Ragan had let me get a peak but she was demanding I go to bed cause she wasn’t talking anymore. I would have to be happy with 287 words….for now. At least I’d sat down and written. I could have caved and went to bed first. Tell myself that I couldn’t think well enough to write. But I sat my butt down and did it. And that was the first step.

I think it was important to share this bit of info cause I’m sure there are more of you out there doing the same things I’m doing. They aren’t just blowing smoke when they tell you to write. I’m sure I’m going to have to break the old habits I have of trying to make it perfect as I go. They call it revision and editing for a reason. If you could write it all in one shot people would. They don’t, so we have to stop trying.

For those of you who want to kick me for writing this down and not my book. I think it’s just as valuable to share these thoughts as I get them, cause I’d be likely to forget and some poor person would be out there right now staring at their screen trying to find the perfect words. Come on, let’s go do this the rough and dirty way! *nods head to the right*

I’m proud of myself.

The second thing I want to announce is that we’ll be having Critter Comment 3 soon featuring an unpublished author who wrote asking to be part of the podcast! It’s a great piece and I think you’ll really like it.

And lastly, I want to point you at two really good links I saw recently.
Advice for Sff writers (can apply to all though)
Deep Genre (blog of writers…good stuff there)