Ugh.

[go_team]

I can't stand to read what I wrote for last year's National Novel-Writing Month, but it's been so long that I don't remember it well enough to outline what still needs to be written! Bleaaaugh!

Part of me (ok, a large part) wants to just give up and throw it all out, but I know that's a bad idea because I never finish anything. Somehow I have to muster the determination and sheer god-damnedness to write the rest, but... yuck. It's such dreck! Total dreck! To quote Bill the Cat, "Ack! Ptui!"

Ok, time to do something else now. Preferably something that doesn't leave me quite so disgusted. I know... I've got some bread pudding in the oven that needs checking on. That's much better than beating myself around the head with my shitty, shitty incomplete novel.

Comments

[kuddliphish.livejournal.com]

First of all I must say your novel is NOT shitty. Yes, it is a rough draft, but it also presents some interesting characters, in an interesting world with an actual plot. But I will stop there because I know how I feel about some of my works that other people like.

I can also understand the "I never finish anything" lament. I currently have two novels that are in the editing stages, a short story that wants me to turn it into a novel, a short story that is sooo close to being done I can taste it (but I still don't want to work on it) and a least a half a dozen first chapters, vague outlines, and dramatic scenes from novels that will probably never be more than pieces. Some of these works will never be finished. The "novel" I wrote for my thesis only got as far as it did because I had to turn it in to graduate--I have no plans of ever touching it again. I still haven't given up on the short story that wants to be a novel, though. I wrote it my senior year and haven't really touched it since, but the idea and the characters still interest me. Someday I'll get back to it.

*sigh* I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. I know it is frustrating to have half finished pieces floating around but at the same time squeezing blood from a stone isn't a good way to go. If you truly hate the piece, if looking at it makes you just want to retch, then I'm not sure any good will come from forcing it. Even if you do finish it (however you define that) you will still loath it. On the other hand if looking at it is only frustrating because you know it could be better, because you want it to be better, because you still believe in the characters, the world, the story, then try to get back into it in an approachable manner. Try rereading only the mythic stories first, or start at the last scene and work your way forward.

There is nothing wrong with ditching the story entirely too...or putting it on the back burner for a couple of years. You wrote 50,000--Fifty Thousand!-words in a month. You are one of the mere 15% that successfully completed NaNoWriMo. That is nothing to sneer at, and frankly I think you did a wonderful job. That should be enough, at least for your first novel.

Ugh, I'm trying to be sympathetic yet supportive and probably failing at both...and writing a freakin' huge comment to boot, so I'll just stop now.

[maerdi.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear!

[goteam.livejournal.com]

Thank you for all the support, Janelle. I think my disgust mostly stems from having spent so very much time and effort on those 50,000 words last year, only to have it not be very good, and also from being frustrated at myself for not having the determination to finish my story. The combination is a double whammy of doom. Also (I think I've complained about this before) I think it's time for me to change viewpoint characters in a big way --- originally I started writing out in first person from the lead's point of view, and then switched to third person limited when I found I wasn't identifying with her as much as I'd expected to, and now I find myself wanting to do something freaky like first person omniscient narrator who might not even be a character in the story. Danger! But any which way, to get back to work on it I have to figure out where I left off/what I need to write, and that's really hard to do when I get frustrated/disgusted with myself after less than 15 minutes of browsing around in it. One possibility is to dig up the old notes and outlines I made last November, I guess... but of course I have no idea where those are and I've moved since the last time I saw them. Ugh.

On the upside, between you and Anna, I feel like I have to finish this novel --- it's got fans, for fuck's sake! I suspect I'm going to need major help with continuity issues by the time I'm done writing this sucker, since I'm doing it so out of order and disjointedly and whatnot. And now this reply is getting disjointed and weird, so it's time for me to stop and post it already. But thanks again for the support.

Here I go again

[kuddliphish.livejournal.com]

now I find myself wanting to do something freaky like first person omniscient narrator who might not even be a character in the story.

Talk to me about the omniscient first person thing. Are you thinking of having the first person be a loose framing story, kind of like a report on this slice of the history of the witchworld? Or are you thinking of having it be more personal, kind of a "usual suspects" style the narrator was present for the events but primarily as an observer? Either one would work in the context of the plot and setting, but they would have very different feels.

In The Phoenix Guards Steven Brust uses the historic reporter style of first person omniscient to really good effect, mostly by having the narrator be very amusing when he is "visible" but also being distant enough that he can be "invisible" during gripping scenes. The point of view of historian is also fun because it is slanted yet pretends to know-all see-all. Having the narrator be the highly objective voice from the intro could be interesting, though maintaining that voice might be difficult. Doing something wacky like having one of Bookers protegees reporting on "the great upheaval" (or whatever they call the era) would also be interesting and it may not require as strong of a voice (One of my personal difficulties with first person narration is sustaining the voice of the narrator through the piece. The more distinct and unusual the voice the more difficult this is for me, so I tend towards narrators with more moderate, less stylized voices--and therefore end up with limited third person POV almost all the time--but enough about my problems)

The narrator as harmless observer could work as well, but it almost begs for the twist ending (turns out to be Booker's alter-ego, or one of the sisters, or someone talked about but never seen) because we have to care about a narrator who was actually there more. The Great Gatsby is written in this style and it really works because the quiet unassuming narrator lends such contrast to the flashy title character. If you are looking for true omniscience, instead of incredible nosiness, this may not be the way to go either.

Anyway I think that changing the POV is probably not a bad idea, even if it just gives you a fresh perspective. And now I've written another humongous comment in your journal, so I'll stop before it gets ludicrous.

One last thing: if at any point you want to take this discussion off line let me know, I can do the e-mail thing too, or even give you a call if you think discussing things in person will help. You can also tell me to shut up without giving offense, since I know there are some writing things that it helps to discuss and some that I just need to work through without an audience.

[linley.livejournal.com]

I consider the writing done for NaNoWriMo to essentially be one big freewrite--you turn off the critic and just let the words flow. What you end up with is a great big, really, really, rough draft. I only made it about halfway through the last NaNoWriMo I participated in, but when I went back to the story several months later I felt exactly the same way--the draft had major problems. I had refused to let myself read more than the last couple paragraphs of my previous day's work so that I couldn't get sucked into revising instead of writing fresh material. As a result, I had strange plot gaps, characters who changed names, etc. etc. But that wasn't the worst. The opening reminded me way too much of Romeo and Juliet, and the characters needed so much more development, and on and on and on. But I had a really interesting central character who was well on her way to finding herself, and some decent material in bits here and there. And so I started to tinker with that.

You can't expect a novel that you write in one month to be genius on the page. A textbook from a creative writing class I took one summer quotes British author Gabriel Josipovici as saying, "Ten pages a day for thirty days gives you three hundred--and then you rewrite it seventeen times." You're only on rewrite #1. Don't be so hard on yourself.