Let’s jump to the end and work backwards, shall we?
I did not finish my manuscript. The failure project failed. (Succeeded? Shrug.)
I wish I could blame the craziness of 2020, but unfortunately my world turned upside down a bit earlier than everyone else. Yay?
In truth, it was a sort of blessing because I had an extra 6 months to learn to deal with disruptions and disappointment so I was a bit better prepared. (No, I won’t post the “Everything is fine.” picture. Why? Shrug.)
But I’m back to try again.
(And I kind of hope that if we’ve all just been prescribed a year of fear, frustration and dead dreams, then maybe everyone else might be okay in about 6 months time. Fingers crossed.)
For the past three weeks, I’ve been sick. Like, very sick.
And also procrastinating. (More on this a bit later.)
But mostly sick.
Unfortunately, those three weeks included my deadline for getting my rough draft done. When I first fell ill, I was very upset with myself for not feeling up to writing and possibly missing my deadline.
But as I kept getting sicker, I also got more clarity. The deadline I was racing to meet was my own invention and my own schedule. And, thus could be changed. I won’t always have the ability to move a goal post like this, but this time I do.
So I let myself off the hook and gave my body time to heal. Interestingly, the rest/healing period has given me some time to brainstorm on one of my Future Rejections and I like what I’ve been able to piece together.
I am a dreamer-plotter who will pants as a last resort.
Boy, aren’t y’all a curious bunch! More answers to more questions.
Are you going for a specific word count?
No.
1. I don’t want to limit or fool myself and hitting 50,000 words (or any other arbitrary limit) would make me think that my story is done regardless of if I’d hit all of the right beats and closed up all of the plotholes. Similarly, if I get the story out but haven’t gotten to 50,000 words, I might feel pressure to add words. Knowing me, that means more plot which only works to wildly confuse matters.
2. I know enough about revising to know that the manuscript will shrink and grow during the revision and critique process, so I’m not worried about the word count right now.
Are you a Pantser or a Plotter?
For the uninitiated, “Pantsers” are those who write by the seat of their pants; they just start typing and let the muse take the pen or the keyboard. “Plotters” outline and try to plan out the story before writing.
I am a dreamer-plotter who will pants as a last resort. Most of the future rejects started out as daydreams that can be most easily summarized as “What would happen if…”
After I’ve played in the daydream for a while, I try to wrangle what I recall into a 9-part/3-act outline with GMC (Goal, Motivation, Conflict). I usually find that I’m missing realistic GMC and Acts I and III of the outline.
But if I’m still interested, I try to write up notes from my memories of the daydreams (not the easiest task in the world, I don’t mind saying) while brainstorming on the pieces that I’m missing. Sometimes it works and I get most of the way to a full outline which I then try to parlay into a full manuscript. Sometimes it doesn’t, so then I pants.
Either way, I’m still trying to get to a full manuscript.
I’ve gotten some great questions, so here are some answers.
What do you write? What genre?
I write mostly contemporary romance; I don’t have the attention span to do the research for historical. However, one of my future rejections is a children’s book and the other is for a comic book series. So, basically, a little of this, a little of that.
Are you going to use any specific software?
I’ll probably use Scrivener (This is not an ad.) to start. I like the way it organizes my thinking and I really like (Again, not an ad.) their new product Scapple.
I don’t write in order and I don’t have enough space to keep multiple corkboards for the tiny, nudgy, character-specific/story-specific details. Scapple lets me get them out of my head and keeps track of how they relate to the story.
Edits and revisions will probably be done in Word (or the Linux alternative). That’s right, the Sphinx is a penguin!
Technology aside, I often write best and fastest with a pen and paper. I have to have a really good head of steam going before I can replicate the amount of words typed versus written.
You don’t really hope to get rejected right?
It’s pretty much accepted fact that all writers get rejected and I know that I’m not going to be everyone’s cup of tea (Irish Breakfast, brewed strong, black, one Splenda), so I might as well make peace with it.
At one point in the life of each of my future rejections, I stopped because I was worried it wouldn’t be submittable. (See what I did there? 🙂 ) One of my hoped-for outcomes of this project is to get past those thoughts/fears, write the damn book, get to the rejection phase and see if it hurts as much as I think it will. (I actually think it will hurt more, but we’ll have to see.)
And then, keep going.
Also, in order to get rejected, you have to a whole packet ready to submit, another milestone I haven’t yet achieved. By the time the rejections start rolling in, I’ll have already hit (and conquered) some here-to-fore personally unfaced obstacles. Will these (seemingly minor) victories blunt the sting of rejection? Will accomplishment adrenaline propel me to keep at it? Who knows?! I guess we’ll find out together.
Okay, that’s all I have time for right now; I’m still in the writing stage.
It is my dismal duty to inform you of the demise of one of my WIPs.
Dearly Beloved,
It is my dismal duty to inform you of the demise of one of my WIPs. Born in the summer of 2012, it started life on the rails of an Amtrak train as a light contemporary romance involving a motorcycle accident, home renovations and actors falling in love. As it matured, it outgrew the accident and renovations but held fast to the romance between two actors and became a full (if flawed) 50,000+ word manuscript in the late summer of 2015. After enduring a series of critiques, in 2016, it attempted to enter the world of submissions and contests. It did not fare well. Multiple revisions efforts never seemed to make it any better and in August 2019, it was pronounced dead.
In accordance with its final wishes, plot points, characters, dialogue and settings will be donated to orphans.
The first story I ever completed is no more.
Towards the end, it had become a mangled and tortured thing with unresolved plot points and without understandable motivations.
In my (non-expert) opinion, this sometimes happens. The fault lies squarely with me, as it should. I started writing the story before I really knew what went into writing a romance. I have read romance novels ever since I was in the 5th grade, but I’d never understood how the stories were formed. I took my first fiction-writing class in 2013 and tried to apply the lessons I’d learned to my story. Some things I got right, but there’s more to writing romance than just writing fiction and I was missing some of the romance beats.
With each writing class after that, I tried and tried to make the story work but I never had the time to fully delve into the whole story, so I just kept rewriting the first five chapters. Also, during those years, other stories caught my attention and this one would (yet again) fall by the wayside.
Before now, I didn’t want to give up because a) I didn’t want to and b) this story was supposed to be the first in a series. I played with the idea of getting the other stories out and using this one as a prequel, but even that ultimately couldn’t save it.
When reviewing my WIPs for this project, I looked it over again and realized that I had actually started writing this story in another WIP and it worked better. And, the pieces that I was missing from the new WIP were in the old WIP. Only one could survive and the new WIP was cleaner and better organized so it won out. The old WIP is no more and the series it was supposed to start will probably fare just as well as stand-alones.
