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lagilmanAnd, as I'd vowed, at sunset tonight (give or take an overcast sky) I called it: Draft 1.0 of PSI#4.
It's an ugly, lumpy, hole-ridden draft, but it has a beginning and a middle and an end, and all the plot-bones are there, if not fully jointed and sheathed yet. So it will sit in the manuscript-cave for a few days, while I deal with other things that fell by the wayside this past month or two, and then, probably on Wednesday, I will take it up again for the next pass.
It was quickly obvious to me that the outline I'd so carefully compiled over a year ago, wasn't going to hold in the aftermath of book 3, and where I needed book 4 to go. In fact, I was off-outline so quickly, it might as well never have been written (sorry, Matrice). POVs shifted, players enlarged or reduced their roles, and an entire section of the book changed location. There were times I thought I'd have to toss the entire thing and start again, but as I reached the last quarter, bits and pieces and thoughts came together, and I discovered - as I always do, every time - what this book was about, what it needed to say, and how I could say it.
More, I knew - expected - that that would happen just about when it did, and so kept pushing through the swampy bits, trusting that it would make sense in the end. And, having discovered the sense, I'll be able to start from the beginning, and rewrite it properly.
Knowing your process - not panicking when a new stage hits but being able to say "oh yeah, there you are" is this amazing gift of freedom, because it lets you worry at/push on the story, not the process. The story is all that you should see, when I'm done.
And now, if you'll excuse me, my brain is going to turn off for about 12 hours.
It's an ugly, lumpy, hole-ridden draft, but it has a beginning and a middle and an end, and all the plot-bones are there, if not fully jointed and sheathed yet. So it will sit in the manuscript-cave for a few days, while I deal with other things that fell by the wayside this past month or two, and then, probably on Wednesday, I will take it up again for the next pass.
It was quickly obvious to me that the outline I'd so carefully compiled over a year ago, wasn't going to hold in the aftermath of book 3, and where I needed book 4 to go. In fact, I was off-outline so quickly, it might as well never have been written (sorry, Matrice). POVs shifted, players enlarged or reduced their roles, and an entire section of the book changed location. There were times I thought I'd have to toss the entire thing and start again, but as I reached the last quarter, bits and pieces and thoughts came together, and I discovered - as I always do, every time - what this book was about, what it needed to say, and how I could say it.
More, I knew - expected - that that would happen just about when it did, and so kept pushing through the swampy bits, trusting that it would make sense in the end. And, having discovered the sense, I'll be able to start from the beginning, and rewrite it properly.
Knowing your process - not panicking when a new stage hits but being able to say "oh yeah, there you are" is this amazing gift of freedom, because it lets you worry at/push on the story, not the process. The story is all that you should see, when I'm done.
And now, if you'll excuse me, my brain is going to turn off for about 12 hours.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-17 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-17 09:23 am (UTC)