Romance Novel weblog by Carolyn Jewel

Writer's Diary

Monday, April 23, 2007

Ballast unloaded, Cap'n!

Tonight I got to about the middle of chapter 14, having cut a fair amount from chapter 13 because I was thinking, isn't this over yet? So right before that point I deleted all the stuff after that point and got it to a chapter end, sorta. That put me about 200 words ahead for the night. So then I went and deleted my two ballast chapters, whose main purpose I think was to sit around in the word count whispering Hey, you might need us! And I did, for moral support. Until I did a little arithmetic and realized that with 13 chapters yet to slog through (more about that later) and adding at least 1000 words a night (well, yeah, except for tonight) I'd be at 93K before I even got around to writing the last chapter, and I have (setting aside the MA madness for a moment) at least 3-6 more rounds through this thing. So, I put them in the recycling in case I really do need some of those 3,400 words back. They're sitting there with the rest of the guests in the green room. Maybe they'll get back on the show. Who knows?

In the meantime, this book is unusual for me in that I am going through these chapters and it's torture to see all those flat emotions, missing detail, stuff and I just keep writing and fixing and fixing and fixing. I get all panicky about how sucky it all is and then the muse kicks in and things are off in some direction I wasn't thinking about on purpose. I just follow along, hoping the fingers hold out while I keep fixing stuff and dealing with the new stuff.

There have been a couple of sparks of life, so I have hope that as an MA project this will not reek too badly. But it will not, as I have represented to everyone, be the finished product.

All righty. My next goal is to get into bed before 10:00pm. I have 6 minutes.

Labels: editing, Magellan's Witch