Writing fiction again.
I've been working on getting reorganized and figuring out what directions I want to head this year and when I came to my writing goals, I just jotted down that I wanted to finish a first draft of the first novel in the series I started writing about a couple of years ago. I outlined and researched and outlined some more and tried to start a first draft, but I hated it. The more I worked on it, the more I hated it. I was able to begin steering it into a direction of something that I wouldn't hate. But it wasn't unraveling like I wanted and so I abandoned it because there was no point in forcing it.
I didn't have a deadline. It was something I was really just doing because I couldn't stand to have this story bouncing around in my noggin anymore. So there was really no pressure to continue working on something that I just wasn't that into. Then last year, I got completely sidetracked into personal essays and memoir and such. So I didn't really touch my documents at all. Almost willfully. I didn't want to see how bad it was. I knew how bad it was. I just wanted to start over.
So now, I have a shiny new MacBook Air (thanks to Chris, his gift to me for Christmas, even though I'm staunchly a Linux fan and I'm trying my best to refrain from wiping it and installing Ubuntu) and none of my files are copied over yet and I'm thinking about just starting from scratch with only my research intact. I've been trying to get more consistent about writing at 750words.com lately and I've had some really good streaks.
One day last week, I sat down and with nothing else in mind to write about, I started writing a plot summary. The next thing I knew, I breezed past 750 words and kept going into about 2100 words encompassing a very loose summary of three books covering two major conflicts. It was clear as day. My themes were surfacing. My romance was getting buried (thank god). And my major plot arcs were finally apparent. That was something with which I had struggled before. I had no idea what the story was about, just random scenes and vague ideas and some character sketches. I feel like I have a direction now and like I don't even need to write an outline, except that I sort of want to write my draft in outline format to make things easy to move around. If that makes any sense at all.
Which brings me to this question... anyone use Scrivener? It sort of looks like exactly what I want for trying to organize my pieces and parts in a way that's easy to make changes to and I really like the fact that I can include photos and stuff on a cork board sort of thing, since I'm a very visual thinker. But I kind of wanted to see if any of my writer friends used something like this and what they though of it first. Because at $45, it's not exactly an impulse buy when I can just outline in Libre for free.
Anyway, for once I feel like I can do this. I'm going to pick up all my writing reference books again and just start putting words on a page until I can figure this thing out. And maybe this time next year I can say I finished a first draft. That'll be HUGE for me!
I didn't have a deadline. It was something I was really just doing because I couldn't stand to have this story bouncing around in my noggin anymore. So there was really no pressure to continue working on something that I just wasn't that into. Then last year, I got completely sidetracked into personal essays and memoir and such. So I didn't really touch my documents at all. Almost willfully. I didn't want to see how bad it was. I knew how bad it was. I just wanted to start over.
So now, I have a shiny new MacBook Air (thanks to Chris, his gift to me for Christmas, even though I'm staunchly a Linux fan and I'm trying my best to refrain from wiping it and installing Ubuntu) and none of my files are copied over yet and I'm thinking about just starting from scratch with only my research intact. I've been trying to get more consistent about writing at 750words.com lately and I've had some really good streaks.
One day last week, I sat down and with nothing else in mind to write about, I started writing a plot summary. The next thing I knew, I breezed past 750 words and kept going into about 2100 words encompassing a very loose summary of three books covering two major conflicts. It was clear as day. My themes were surfacing. My romance was getting buried (thank god). And my major plot arcs were finally apparent. That was something with which I had struggled before. I had no idea what the story was about, just random scenes and vague ideas and some character sketches. I feel like I have a direction now and like I don't even need to write an outline, except that I sort of want to write my draft in outline format to make things easy to move around. If that makes any sense at all.
Which brings me to this question... anyone use Scrivener? It sort of looks like exactly what I want for trying to organize my pieces and parts in a way that's easy to make changes to and I really like the fact that I can include photos and stuff on a cork board sort of thing, since I'm a very visual thinker. But I kind of wanted to see if any of my writer friends used something like this and what they though of it first. Because at $45, it's not exactly an impulse buy when I can just outline in Libre for free.
Anyway, for once I feel like I can do this. I'm going to pick up all my writing reference books again and just start putting words on a page until I can figure this thing out. And maybe this time next year I can say I finished a first draft. That'll be HUGE for me!