Category: How To Find Your Writing Discipline

  • Ohio 3: A thing about family – the VERY good writing day

    Ohio 3: A thing about family – the VERY good writing day

    Today was a tough writing day — not because of getting the words, but because the words are about things that hit me hard. Family, and what that world could mean, and should mean, and also what it sometimes doesn’t. This chapter is deep inside the magic of the world… and the conflict there comes…

  • Replotting Ohio 2… The Experiment that Went BOOM!

    Replotting Ohio 2… The Experiment that Went BOOM!

    Book 2 has a lot of salvageable material. A lot of awesome world stuff, some wonderfully funny scenes, some pretty scary scenes. It was fun for me to read, and I made myself laugh a bunch of times, got a little teary-eyed, did a light revision and passed it off to my Editor. Matt, however,…

  • Still replotting, still restructuring on Ohio 3

    Still replotting, still restructuring on Ohio 3

    There’s damn little I’m going to be able to save. Ohio 3 is lost in the weeds. So at this point, I’m barely even looking for things to save. I’m just looking for the story I wanted to tell but didn’t, and if I can use any of what I already wrote, great. If not……

  • Here’s that Wrong Left Turn In Albuquerque… and it’s as bad as I dreaded.

    Here’s that Wrong Left Turn In Albuquerque… and it’s as bad as I dreaded.

    The first sixty pages of Ohio 3 held up fine. Starting on manuscript page 61, I went in exactly the wrong direction, dropped the really good local character I had in place for one who broke my otherwise tight worldbuilding through two novels and the start of this one all to shit, threw in a…

  • Catching up on the updates: Starting at page 291 on the Ohio 2 revision

    Catching up on the updates: Starting at page 291 on the Ohio 2 revision

    The last couple days have been hectic, and I’ve managed to miss blogging twice. But I’ve gotten my revision pages every day. This morning, I’m starting the write-in revision on page 291. The last page in the novel is 431. I won’t get there today, but I’ll make good headway toward getting there, and might…

  • OHIO 2 REVISION: Made it to manuscript page 134 of the Ohio 2 type-in.

    OHIO 2 REVISION: Made it to manuscript page 134 of the Ohio 2 type-in.

    And in this particular set of chapters, I’ve managed to make myself cry a couple of times. The fixes in this section have been mostly small (typos, spellos, extra spaces), and the couple of bigger changes let me add a bit more emotion to the terrible thing that my main character is discovering. It was…

  • So today I start the type-in of the Ohio 2 Revision

    So today I start the type-in of the Ohio 2 Revision

    I was up at six, (when you’re fasting, it’s weirdly easy to roll out of bed at the crack of dawn and be through the shower, done with the first cup of coffee, before seven AM… and at my desk and finished with necessary work emails and the one help desk ticket only I could do…

  • Today I hit a messy part of the manuscript…

    Today I hit a messy part of the manuscript…

    I had a small fight with myself over whether to keep two short-term characters and the scene that included them, and after some struggle and bouncing my arguments around with myself, I let them stay. They tie into an earlier incident, and my conclusion with them in this book does offer some promise that today’s…

  • Revelation Struck!!!

    Revelation Struck!!!

    You grind. You dig. You read with increasing despair through a manuscript that seemed while you were writing it like a thing of wonder. You wonder how you could have gone so far off the mark. And you think, “How did I think this was going to work?” and consider the possibility that you’re going…

  • Read-through write-in revision of Ohio 2 now done through page 233 of 431

    Read-through write-in revision of Ohio 2 now done through page 233 of 431

    Read-through/write-in notes today flew, with Book 2 being a remarkably clean first draft (not even a lot of typos)… …Right up to the point where it wasn’t.  In the last three novels, I changed some of the worldbuilding that I did in Two to something much better. And when I ran into the spot where…