Time passes...
Still working hard. The wordcount thing is maybe still a bit ambitious, and I'm having troubles there, but I'm counting it a good day when I write, and I'm noticing that my speed seems to be slowly increasing. So that's nice.
Plus, I've been reminding myself over and over and over that it doesn't matter if the first draft sucks. All first drafts suck.
This is received wisdom for me, rather than experiential, so it takes repitition. I'm That Student, who leaves the paper for the night before its 8 am deadline, then stays up all night writing 8-10 pages of combined first and final draft. I've never really worked in the multiple-draft, write, revise, [rewrite, revise,]* edit, polish, proofread paradigm. I'm used to turning out final draft-worthy prose the first time. Only it's not because my writing is that awesome--it's because I've never left myself time to do anything else. And even then, it's not because I'm a Master of Prose--it's a combination of two factors. One, I'm a pretty decent editor. So I do epicyclic edits as I'm writing. Sure, it slows me down a ton and it throws me off my game as far as structuring the paper, but I have all night, after all, and it's only 10 pages. And that's part 2--it's only 10 pages. I can hold the structure and marshall my arguments and supporting evidence in my head for a 10-page paper. Ten pages--pfff. That's only between 2000 and 2500 words, that is. No sweat. Well--sweat, 'cos I left it till the last damn minute, again, but no problem.
Yeah. That's not working out so well for things longer than 2500 words. Which, incidentally, is about the length of the longest short story I have completed to date. Not only am I trying to write a novel, I'm shifting my paradigm at the same time. No wonder this is so tough...
* repeat as needed.
Plus, I've been reminding myself over and over and over that it doesn't matter if the first draft sucks. All first drafts suck.
This is received wisdom for me, rather than experiential, so it takes repitition. I'm That Student, who leaves the paper for the night before its 8 am deadline, then stays up all night writing 8-10 pages of combined first and final draft. I've never really worked in the multiple-draft, write, revise, [rewrite, revise,]* edit, polish, proofread paradigm. I'm used to turning out final draft-worthy prose the first time. Only it's not because my writing is that awesome--it's because I've never left myself time to do anything else. And even then, it's not because I'm a Master of Prose--it's a combination of two factors. One, I'm a pretty decent editor. So I do epicyclic edits as I'm writing. Sure, it slows me down a ton and it throws me off my game as far as structuring the paper, but I have all night, after all, and it's only 10 pages. And that's part 2--it's only 10 pages. I can hold the structure and marshall my arguments and supporting evidence in my head for a 10-page paper. Ten pages--pfff. That's only between 2000 and 2500 words, that is. No sweat. Well--sweat, 'cos I left it till the last damn minute, again, but no problem.
Yeah. That's not working out so well for things longer than 2500 words. Which, incidentally, is about the length of the longest short story I have completed to date. Not only am I trying to write a novel, I'm shifting my paradigm at the same time. No wonder this is so tough...
* repeat as needed.