Deficit, the Unmanageable (now with update!), and Why am I a perfectionist?
Deficit: I went to sleep this morning with something like a 328 deficit in words. I rewrote a chapter and lost more than I gained. Word-wise, I assure you. The story's better by far with the 300+ deleted.
Which means that my goals for the day have changed. Instead of 2481 I'm now pushing for 1992. Let the buffer keep care of itself for today. I'll worry about it tomorrow.
The Unmanageable: As I was discovering the deficit, I also uncovered what I'm calling the Unmanageable. This is the text that's adding to my word count but doesn't add to the story. In some places, it doesn't even make a lick of sense. (Sadly, most of "Day 12" could still fit... argh)
What I would L O V E to do is delete it all and start fresh. Or simple move it someplace where it won't hurt me to look at it.
Problem is, it's 7711 words.
328 words missing I can handle. Anything over 3000... yikes.
This portion of the tale does have a happy ending, though. I can still use the unmanageable without feeling too much like I'm padding my count. I'm calling it the "Jaws Stratagem."
According to what I heard, Peter Benchley was told by his publisher to add a sex scene to the novel Jaws. Something about better sales, it was expected, what have you, who knows. Benchley did this, but made no real effort to connect it with the story. It's sort of... there.
While I'm not sure about how accurate this story is, it does seem like an excellent idea. So after I add my sex scene...
No, wait, I abandoned that idea...
As good as it was...
As my book is a fantasy, Fantastic things can happen. One of my characters will stick his nose in where it doesn't belong and will, for a time, become unstuck in reality. He will visit various possible timelines and when he is finished, after, say, 7711 words are accounted for, he'll return to what he was doing without a.) being changed by the experience or b.) referring to the experience ever again. I keep the words, I gain more words in keeping the words, the novel at least looks like a novel, and I can finish NaNoWriMo without feeling like I cheated.
And I'll make sure I denote just where this fun stuff starts... so I can yank it later.
Problem... managed.
Unmanageable Update: Done, and with a slight gain. It's amazing how well it fits the rest of the text. Part of this was due to the nature of the story and the patch. As "Call of Cthulhu" has senistive people having nightmares, Several "Crawl of Chufule" characters have nightmares, too. Making it all a "dream" both worked as a means to fix things and as a way of showing my utter contempt for the material. And it doesn't read too bad.
I'm still cutting it.
Now, for the first time in a while, I have a clear path. Nothing needs "fixed". I can rework something and have it be pure addition. (Dreams can be prophecy, as I said in reparing the Unmanageable). Things are looking up.
Why am I a perfectionist? Can someone explain to me how I could, for years, turn in incomplete assignments in school, but now have to worry about every little detail of the novel? I'm not getting paid for this contest, it shouldn't matter that the novel looks like a novel. I should just burn through it.
Why can't I do this?
(Because I spent five years working on the characters, that's why. Should have done Foul Lady Fao... knew it....)
Deficit: I went to sleep this morning with something like a 328 deficit in words. I rewrote a chapter and lost more than I gained. Word-wise, I assure you. The story's better by far with the 300+ deleted.
Which means that my goals for the day have changed. Instead of 2481 I'm now pushing for 1992. Let the buffer keep care of itself for today. I'll worry about it tomorrow.
The Unmanageable: As I was discovering the deficit, I also uncovered what I'm calling the Unmanageable. This is the text that's adding to my word count but doesn't add to the story. In some places, it doesn't even make a lick of sense. (Sadly, most of "Day 12" could still fit... argh)
What I would L O V E to do is delete it all and start fresh. Or simple move it someplace where it won't hurt me to look at it.
Problem is, it's 7711 words.
328 words missing I can handle. Anything over 3000... yikes.
This portion of the tale does have a happy ending, though. I can still use the unmanageable without feeling too much like I'm padding my count. I'm calling it the "Jaws Stratagem."
According to what I heard, Peter Benchley was told by his publisher to add a sex scene to the novel Jaws. Something about better sales, it was expected, what have you, who knows. Benchley did this, but made no real effort to connect it with the story. It's sort of... there.
While I'm not sure about how accurate this story is, it does seem like an excellent idea. So after I add my sex scene...
No, wait, I abandoned that idea...
As good as it was...
As my book is a fantasy, Fantastic things can happen. One of my characters will stick his nose in where it doesn't belong and will, for a time, become unstuck in reality. He will visit various possible timelines and when he is finished, after, say, 7711 words are accounted for, he'll return to what he was doing without a.) being changed by the experience or b.) referring to the experience ever again. I keep the words, I gain more words in keeping the words, the novel at least looks like a novel, and I can finish NaNoWriMo without feeling like I cheated.
And I'll make sure I denote just where this fun stuff starts... so I can yank it later.
Problem... managed.
Unmanageable Update: Done, and with a slight gain. It's amazing how well it fits the rest of the text. Part of this was due to the nature of the story and the patch. As "Call of Cthulhu" has senistive people having nightmares, Several "Crawl of Chufule" characters have nightmares, too. Making it all a "dream" both worked as a means to fix things and as a way of showing my utter contempt for the material. And it doesn't read too bad.
I'm still cutting it.
Now, for the first time in a while, I have a clear path. Nothing needs "fixed". I can rework something and have it be pure addition. (Dreams can be prophecy, as I said in reparing the Unmanageable). Things are looking up.
Why am I a perfectionist? Can someone explain to me how I could, for years, turn in incomplete assignments in school, but now have to worry about every little detail of the novel? I'm not getting paid for this contest, it shouldn't matter that the novel looks like a novel. I should just burn through it.
Why can't I do this?
(Because I spent five years working on the characters, that's why. Should have done Foul Lady Fao... knew it....)
2 comments:
Sounds like you've had a very productive day. Here's to many more.
I've never written a sex scene. Can't. I've tried, and as I've said elsewhere, I get so far, then recoil and think, "Okay, this isn't working. Time for plan B: Aliens attack."
That never fails.
Yeah. Yeah, it does.
Sadly I have written sex scenes. Bad scenes, the lot of them. I was very young.
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