Posts Tagged ‘shitty first drafts’
Saturday, April 6th, 2013
What I learned about writing this week is that you can research and plot and plan and outline and do all the preparation in the world, but when you actually start writing – that’s when you start to work out what your story is all about.
I’ve got my novel broken down scene by scene [...]
Tags: novel, plotting, shitty first drafts, writing
Posted in Blog | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, November 28th, 2012
The fantastically talented Priya Sharma tagged me in this blog-chain, and I now have to subject you to my thoughts about my own brilliance or otherwise in the form of a handy Q & A.
What is the working title of your next book/short story/project?
The Midnight Orchestra.
Where did the idea come from [...]
Tags: next big thing, novelists, shitty first drafts, writers
Posted in Blog | No Comments »
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
How do you know when it’s time to stop writing something? Is it when the very thought of it fills you with a sense of paralysing ennui? When you can’t imagine ever being interested in the characters? When the plot makes no real sense? When, after writing several drafts, you still have nothing more than [...]
Tags: failure, novel, shitty first drafts, writing, writing is rewriting
Posted in Blog | No Comments »
Sunday, January 29th, 2012
There’s this moment in the writing of a story, when you’ve written and rewritten, revised, edited, taken out all the extra words, and given your characters a few more things to do other than nodding their heads, shaking their heads, smiling and shrugging; there’s this moment where you think you have finished. Yay, you wrote [...]
Tags: novel, shitty first drafts, short stories, time management, writing, writing advice, writing is rewriting
Posted in Blog | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 16th, 2012
I’m a few thousand words into the second draft of my novel. It’s amazing to me that it has taken approximately 100,000 words to get to the point where I am ready to start actually writing the story. I’ve realised that the first draft was more or less just a very detailed outline. From that, [...]
Tags: novel, shitty first drafts, writing, writing is rewriting
Posted in Blog | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman with one novel on the go is always hankering after another. I honestly think that the best way to guarantee a steady flow of exciting new ideas is always to be working on something that keeps you away from writing anything new.
That notwithstanding, this morning [...]
Tags: novel, shitty first drafts, writing, writing is rewriting
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Saturday, October 29th, 2011
I’ve decided that it would be a cool challenge for me to blog every day between now and the end of the year. The aim is to blog about what I’m writing and reading, of course – but inevitably there will be detours into dog-walking, alcohol, work and other adventures. I can’t help it. Be [...]
Tags: cats, dogs are the best, shitty first drafts, short stories, walking, writing
Posted in Blog | 3 Comments »
Friday, October 28th, 2011
I don’t know how to tell you this, but… I’m not writing a novel.
I know, I know. I’ve led you on terribly.
The truth is, I’m writing THREE novels.
I don’t know how I got into this mess. First, it was just the one novel, and I was totally devoted to it, but halfway [...]
Tags: novel, shitty first drafts, short stories, writing
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Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
So I plucked up courage and read the first draft. It was everything I expected it to be: sloppy, solipsistic, boring. But after reading it, I wrote a list of everything I liked about it, and there were FIVE WHOLE THINGS! So much of the story became clearer to me as I read, particularly towards [...]
Tags: fear, novel, shitty first drafts, writing, writing is rewriting
Posted in Blog | 4 Comments »
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011
I’ve got the fear.
It’s half-term next week, and it’s about two months since I finished the first draft of my novel. A good time to start editing and revising. That was the plan, anyway.
So this morning I printed out a paper copy, with the intention of reading it through once and taking it [...]
Tags: fear, novel, shitty first drafts, writing, writing is rewriting
Posted in Blog | 5 Comments »
