by Bo'sun | January 19th, 2010
Hal posted an awesome blog yesterday which I highly recommend checking out if you missed it. Due to some technical difficulties (meaning due to us never updating the software that runs our blog in two years of having it), she got off to a late start.
Everything Hal said was spot on and will go a long way to making that final draft more powerful. Unfortunately, it’s the exact kind of information that has tied me in knots for more than a week.
You see, I know I must vomit out this first draft. I have to spit the words onto the page, get the story out and not worry about finding the perfect words or the deepest POV. But this week, I forgot.
I think of it as getting off track. My writing train pulled into a station and took the wrong track out. How did this happen? Good question. And if I had an answer I’d write that book and make a fortune.
Deep POV is what hung me out to dry. Which is funny because it could have been a host of other things. All my action takes place in empty rooms. All my characters hang out pretty much naked. My hero is a eunuch. (That last one is a real problem and Nate (the hero in question) is NOT happy about it.)
Can you put parenthesis inside parenthesis? Is there a plural for parenthesis? Word suggests parentheses so maybe that’s right, who knows.
See how easily I’m sidetracked?
Back to the story. So I googled deep POV and found this great ten part series on everything you needed to know about the topic. Ironically, around about part nine, the author says something like “by the way, don’t try any of this in your first draft.”
Duh.
FOCUS is what I need right now and I need to focus on vomiting this story out. Since I’m the only person here who doesn’t have at least one MS under her belt (bed?), what I want to know is, does the vomiting come easier the more you write? Do you have the confidence that you can fix anything in revisions or do you get tangled up thinking you needed to do better the first time so revisions are less painful?
PS: I wonder if people would be offended if we gave out little black barf bags with the skull-n-crossbones as decoration? Wouldn’t that be a great reminder? We could sprinkle them with glitter.
I know, can you believe it?! I told Hellie it’s because I took over her timeslot. LOL! She has everyone trained to come looking for her brilliance every Tuesday. I can’t match her for brilliance, but the glittery barf bags gave us something to talk about.
Hellie will be up next Monday, BTW.
Bo’sun, I told you it isn’t me. It’s because I didn’t update the blog for 2 years and it crashed Monday–and everyone was going through pirate withdrawals from not being able to comment and stuff.
Although should my post post correctly on Monday, it does feature eye candy. Just saying.
Yeah, it sounds to me as if identity is the issue. And for men generally, identity is tied into what they do; for women, it more often tends to be tied into relationships.
And with athletes, their identification with their sport is built over a long period. With football, baseball, and basketball, for example, it’s often a huge part of their lives from childhood through adolescence through young adulthood and maybe beyond. My brother was an All-SEC offensive tackle thirty years ago. He still gets requests for autographs in the mail from UGA fanatics. They see him as part of a proud history. But he doesn’t like talking about his glory days because he was cut from the pro team who signed him. The coach told him, “You have the talent, but you’re just not mean enough.” Three decades later that “not enough” still colors his view of who he is.
Gah!!! i type so slowly that by the time I post, the conversation has changed directions–sometimes more than once.
Janga, don’t worry, we’re so ADHD around here, the conversation will return to what you’re posting anyway.
Janga – Jump in whenever and whereever you want. You know there’s little rhyme or reason to our threads over here.
And that’s exactly it. Baseball has been a part of Nate’s life almost since he could walk. He knew he couldn’t play forever, and always planned on doing the coaching thing when his playing days were over, but he thought that day would be his decision. Not something uncontrollable and especially not his body failing on him.
Did your nephew ever try for another team? Sounds to me like he just ended up with the wrong coach.
My brother, Ter. Even I am not old enough to have a nephew who signed a pro contract thirt years ago. My oldest nephew would have been playing Little League then. LOL!
My brother turned down several offers after that. I’m not sure about all his reasons, but I do know he shares his sister’s regional chauvinism.
I should add that although brother was wounded, he was not devastated by the cut. He and another good ole Southern boy cut at the same time felt good enough to take the long way home, partying at every vacation spot between PA and GA.
Excellent post. Does vomiting get easier? Well, the first one I vomited, but it kind of went all over the place, and what I mean by that is that even though the hero and heroine were the same there was no connect between anything else. I mean even the villain changed from chapter to chapter. (Part of the learning process I guess) It took me two years to vomit that one.
The second I vomited in a more linear fashion there was no disconnect, or at least nothing that couldn’t be fixed. It took me about four months, and after a long hiatus, I’m revising. And it is very workable.
The third I vomited in a total linear fashion in under two months 63,000 plus words. I can’t wait to get into revisions because I think it will be a total breeze compared to anything else I’ve worked on.
So my thoughts are that if you’ve done all of your pre-planning (yes you can move from it while writing) then vomiting gets much easier as you go along.
Janga – So sorry! I’m just so used to talking about your nephews. I think a little part of my brain went, “Are you sure that’s right?” and I ignored it. Good to know they didn’t suffer overly much. LOL!
Renee – You’re like a machine! So basically, I just have to plant my ass in the chair and do it. I thought this might be the case. But it is much easier with the plotting done. The only reason this current scene is hanging me up is because it was a last minute audible.
Good luck with the revisions!
No way I can read all of these learned posts!
I only have time for a quickie.
Skimming over more than 100 posts I pick up vomiting and excreting as the way to generate first drafts.
You guys never heard of hard work. How about sweating that first draft. *grin*
The computer guys say ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’.
Might the reverse apply to writing?
I can’t believe that vomiting or excreting is going to produce diamonds! They are generated with great heat and pressure.
Perhaps you need to generate heat and pressure to succeed.
Just trying to help.
How about sweating blood? I’m sorta with Q here. I neither want to vomit or excrete this thing. But sweating blood seems apt.
I don’t know about you people, but vomiting is neither an easy thing to do nor is it pleasant. And if you do it long enough, blood is sure to be involved.
I realize I just made the graphic visuals of the day worse, but still. You don’t create a diamond in the first draft, you’re sifting through piles of black grit trying to find something to work with.
You don’t create a diamond in the first draft, you’re sifting through piles of black grit trying to find something to work with
LOL I would hope that you get ROUGH diamonds first time round. You then have to cut and polish.
At least that’s my theory!
I know, let’s look fer a metaphore everyone can agree with! Should take…oh…about 50-60 bazillion years!
Hey, fer some it’s a mining project, fer some it’s a canoe trip and fer others, it’s a barfest. And a dozen other visions.
Let’s see, I’m been in the rain all day, so I say first draft be like a downpour. Most a’ it goes down the drain straight ta the sea, but if ya built yer dams well, and yer fields are ready fer it, a good potion goes ta nurture crops, fill swimming pools and quench thirst.
If the cloud, be it grumpy or not, waits until it’s poised jus’ above the field, pools or reservoirs…it might wait a long, long, long time.
So, let the rain fall where it may…it’s all good.
And it occurred ta me, Hel’s got a slutty computer.