97,769 words . . .

It's a start.  I have now officially fused my past two NaNoWriMo efforts into a unified manuscript.

For those of you wondering how 50,000-odd words plus another 50,000-odd words adds up to less than 100,000 words, allow me to clarify.  My NaNo 2006 effort (Soft Places) was written in the form of diary entries by the narrator.  (I even dated the entries contemporaneously, and threw in things that were happening at the time.)  The 2007 NaNo (The Things Behind the Sun) was written in first person present tense (though I did include references to the narrator continuing to write things down in her diary.)

I decided, ultimately, to do the entire thing in first person present tense.  This meant I had to take the diary entries and rewrite them accordingly.  At first, I was trying too hard to rewrite and perfect everything as I go, then I decided it would be faster and more effective to just cut, paste, redo the verbs and do a little rewriting here and there to smooth the transitions.

So I have finally, as of tonight, completed that process.  I have a relatively unified manuscript of 97,769 words, according to the Word Count function on Microsoft Word.

It still needs work.  A lot of it.  I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail about what the book is about (it's about ninety-eight thousand words, at this point, and that's all you're really getting out of me) but I'll continue, I hope, to talk about the process as I go.

There are still many things about it I'm not 100% happy with, things that I plowed on past on the first pass because, hell, it's NaNo, just get the words out and fix it later.  (That's another reason the word count dropped slightly on the rewrite--there were quite a few things I decided to go ahead and excise while I was at it.)  But at the same time, it feels good to be able to talk about The Manuscript I'm Working On instead of about This Neat Idea I Have For A Novel.

I've also taken the first 3,000 or so words and submitted them to a writing workshop that's going to be held at Orbital 2008, a writerly sci-fi type convention that's being held in the UK.  (I'm flying all the way from Atlanta, Georgia, because one of the guests is Tanith Lee, who is one of my favorite living authors in the history of the written word.)  It should be genuinely interesting to see what someone who isn't familiar with the places I'm describing will think of it.

So.  Well.  There we are.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to run around in circles and jump up and down for a bit.

Comments

Collin Kelley said…
Welcome to the blogosphere! I'm going to add you to my blog links right now!
March 8, 2008 at 5:15 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NaNoWriMo: The Aftermath

 I made it! That's really the overall feeling that comes out of this year's effort--I made it. How did I manage this with a full-time job? I know I've done it, repeatedly. But this year it was harder than it's been in a while. I lost a couple of evenings doing things that were not writing, and that days that I did write were under 1,000 words for a long stretch. One day, I only wrote 93 words. But I persisted, had a couple of high-volume days, and hit 50,000 a few days before the 30th.  The story is nowhere near complete--my outline is 26 chapters, plus epilogue, and I left off at the start of chapter 19. My master plan is to return to Christophina's Garden , create a new outline for what's been written and what has yet to be written, and then finish the thing!  After that, I'll finish up Christophina's Moon  and then work on revising all three books simultaneously to sift out the continuity errors. If I'm clever enough, I may be able to come up with
Read more

NaNoWriMo Day 22: Just the Stats

 Word court: 39,064 First line of the day:  It probably doesn’t help that we got under the covers, because we were cold on account of being nude. Last line of the day:  “Speaking of landmarks, would you be willing to incarnate as Xenix long enough to sell the Green Man Gallery plot to me? I want to set up a link to Turris Solis there.” Bad summary: Newlywed couple hosts reception for wedding party. Everybody gets along quite well. Young lady contacts charity, plays in virtual worlds, and makes dinner from the leftover reception food. Makes sense in context:  The Johnson-Reeds arrive just in time to hear Uncle Robbie laughing hysterically and emerging from the dining room waving a chicken nugget around.
Read more

NaNoWriMo Day 30: The End

 Wordcount (final): 52,176 First line of the day:  She’s asking so she can cash in on the hype while it’s still hyping. Last line of the day:  I look at the texture I’m working on, put Lenny in my pocket and go to the guest house. Bad summary: Young woman has phone conversation with art dealer. Makes sense in context:  I feel stupid the moment I ask that question.
Read more