A Little Less Written, but a Little More Cut

Sometimes the idea of writing toward the word count goal must move aside for bigger issues facing the story.

Today was that day. Despite family underfoot and tearing down Christmas crud, I managed to squeak out almost a thousand words. But I also cut over 900 and shifted them to another file. I put in a lot of time writing, but I didn't make my lofty goal of 2000 words.

Technically, if I want to be kind to myself, I did work with almost 2000 words, but not in the way I wanted to: moving forward and adding words. Nope. Not today. But the truth is, I can't move forward in a clean manner unless I rip out useless roadblocks to my creativity. 

This is where the flexibility of my overall writing goals comes into play. If I had beat my head up against the goal and forced the words, chances are I'd be cutting them at some point in the future. Rather than waste valuable time writing crud, I chose to fine tune a scene, layer in elements regarding scene and settings and build my Villain's persona in a vignette. He's emerging for me and I must pay heed to him.

Now I've never written a true villain before with his own viewpoint. It's interesting to crawl inside his head and try to give him a three dimensional, conflicted personality. He isn't all bad. He's very flawed and needs help, but he's motivated by a need to be seen as good and valuable. Who isn't? I have no idea if I'm getting it right, but I'm trying.

That's all this writer can do...

No time to read today. Brain is dead. Stay tuned... I believe Maass's book is giving me a lot to chomp on and it's nourishing my writing efforts. 

Edit, Spit, and Polish

Okay, for those of you who are great at editing commas, either I did it properly in the title or I did not. My long-suffering CP has a gift at all things grammar. She sent me my hard copy MS and it arrived yesterday. Everywhere I am supposed to have a comma, there isn't one. Well, not quite, but close enough. And everywhere I shouldn't have a comma, I should not.

Okay, it's not that bad. I do know how to insert commas in dialogue, but I am a always confusing the "if two clauses can be read alone, separate them. If not, don't. Argh.

I spent the better part of 5 hours fixing commas. Oh, and fixing sex scenes. Hands don't detach and touch body parts by themselves. Gross. By fixing issues like that I added a few words, struggled with some words, and I subtracted some words.

Now I have to go in and add more words. The irony is not lost on me. I hate cutting words. Yet, here I am agonizing over adding words so I can at least restore the MS to 55,000 to 60,000 words. It had more than that at one time.

I guess it's a good thing I am not writing a single title romance. And it's another good thing that publishers what to save money on paper and printing. Whew.

At least the story is sound. She loves how I fixed the plotting problems. And that's where the writing is important to me. It's in the story and the voice it's written in that is vital for me because those are the elements I want to sell to the agents/editors.

Commas are easy to find and fix. And I am a workhorse, so I will take my lumps and fix them when asked. However, I may whine.

Meanwhile, back at the creative ranch I am eager to come up with a boatload of questions for the Green Beret who came to speak to our romance chapter. What an awesome dude! He was totally jazzed about all his adventures, and he was very Tim the Tool Man enthusiastic for all the bells, whistles and toys he used.

Very cool.

I can't wait to learn more.

But I have to wait till I get the MS sent off. My reward for all this editing will be having fun with the revision of the fourth book. Woot!

The Last Day of the Semester

I have one half day left till Christmas break. Wahoo!! I am writing for one hour today--actually decided to punt an entire scene. Not sure what that means for the next scene, but it is highly necessary to move the book along. Agh, I hate cutting scenes, but when I write it on my MS about three or more times asking if I should cut or save, it usually means CUT! Argh.

Does cutting a scene count as writing?

One hour today. Then walk, shop, get ready for a big party, and more. I am going to stick to this. Last night we discussed my going back to work after daughter goes to college. Argh again. I hate regular hours, stupid bosses and no vacation time. I MUST get published before my daughter goes to college. That gives me exactly 3.5 years. And I remember a time capsule we did in the millenium in which I wrote I would be a published author by 2012!! That's not so far away now.

At least I've written three books since I wrote that statement. Now I need to sell one, and quick!! New year's resolution is to write faster, work smarter, and get marketing!!

The countdown begins!!