When drafting a novel, the general recommendation is to sit yourself down someplace comfortable and write it straight through to the end in as short a time frame as possible - to get the damn story down, no matter how ugly it is, THEN go back and revise. I envy those who can do this, I really do, because I'm just not like that. I wish I were. It would make my writing life easier I suspect. I might even have my novel finished by now.
But no. I write, then backstitch and rework it. Then I write a little more, then backstitch and revise again. Sometimes I go waaaay back in the wayback machine to revise parts I wrote months ago - even segments I wrote last year. All the time, I'm still pressing forward toward the end. It just takes me longer.
Why write this way?
I think it's just the way I'm made. It's in my genetic makeup or something. In all our old family home movies taken during birthdays and Christmas, I'm the kid cleaning up. I wouldn't open the next present until I'd placed all the gift wrap and trimmings from the first present in a garbage bag. My sister claimed I had no fun. She ripped into everything with gusto.
I like all the underpinnings to be neat, without any bumps or wrinkles. When my husband "makes the bed" he just pulls the comforter up over the wrinkled sheet, plumps up the pillows a tiny bit and tosses them onto the bed in the general direction of the headboard. But not me. No, I have to smooth out the sheets until not a wrinkle shows and then make sure everything hangs evenly around all sides of the bed before I pull up the comforter and carefully arrange the pillows. Honestly, I wish I was different. My art instructor is always urging me to draw a little looser, not to grasp the pencil so firmly. But he can't change what he can't change.
So, how do you write? Are there any other anal retentive writers out there besides me?
6 comments:
I write the same way. I have to have the beginning set before moving on. It makes it hard to move on.
Yes, I am so like this, Stella. It is the reason why it took me 8 years to finish my first novel. Haha. I use to drive my brothers crazy when we'd all get those Little Debbie cupcakes. I peeled off all the frosting first and ate it, then I opened the cake and licked out the filling, then ate the cake. It took me like thirty minutes.
Oh good, at least I'm not alone. Thanks for sharing that with me. I still unscrew my Oreo cookies and eat the centers before the cookie part.
i gotta say ma, i just kinda write.
Start at the beginning and finish with the end.
I'm trying hard to change my evil ways...but I've had to compromise a bit. I just can't make myself forge ahead without rereading, revising, rethinking.
So, I still do that but I limit myself to looking only at the work I accomplished the day before.
My writing schedule has turned into A Day, write; B day, revise what was written on A Day. Repeat. Ad nauseum it seems.
I do backstitch a tiny bit--the foundation has to be solid before I can move on. But if the previous day's work caught the main idea, I move on. (Though I do twist my Oreos and scrape the filling off with my front teeth. The frosting is the best part!)
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