Sunday, January 27, 2013

Back from my slog

I'm back. And I'm looking over the last post and thinking, "Man, I must have been really depressed when I wrote that."
But I think that is part of the process. There are days when I feel like I'm freaking out and I never have time for writing. But I try to flow like water. If one thing doesn't work out, that's okay. Just fix, bend, and make do. If I'm extra busy on Mondays? Just write 500 words on Mondays and save the 2,000 word monsters for Wednesday, when  I have more free time.
And as for the email thing, I haven't checked my email once this month and I don't feel deprived at all. Strangely, I also do not emerge with huge pockets of free time now. (Even though I conservatively estimated that I spend 2 hours daily on email and guilt surfing the web) It's been taken up by, you know, writing.
But I got past the midpoint of my rewrite, and I am still squinting and trying to figure out if, upon completion, it deserves another complete rewrite (or its furry primate cousin, the huge mud slog fix-everything revisions). But it will be easier. I can already tell that my rewrite is a LOT better than my first draft.
I'll go back to my manuscript now.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

On Mood and Screenwriting

I'm a writer of novels, I know.
I lately have been looking into screenwriting outlining tips and methods in order to spur my own outlining for my rewrite.
Also, I'm doing the Phase Outlining by Lazette Gifford. Basically, you do a very detailed version of an outline, with about 200 words to summarize each scene in a truncated fashion.
I was stuck, though--there were so many loose ends to tie up, so many plotholes to fill. *Sighs*. Story dragons. What can you do about 'em?
Also, writing like a 10,000 word phase outline sounded daunting--even if it would make my story 726,840 times easier to write.
But I had this sort of minipiphany (yes, I just invented it) and I realized the essence of each scene.
It's the mood.
I might be wrong about this, but in each scene in a movie, upon more discovery, there's always a mood. If I can form my scene around a mood, it will be easier to write. Right?
I hope so. Now I should go crank my timer and get to work.