Jenn's World

Today, the stalling ends and the revision begins.

The first thing I'm going to do is make a chronological list of major things I know need changing. I don't know if other authors do this, but I make notes about my story about things I need to go back and change as I go along. The funny thing about writing is it never stops. Your ideas never stop developing. Your characters never stop evolving. And there's nothing like writing a novel to force you to find new facets of your story, world and characters.

That necessarily means going back and dropping 'hints' about what's going to happen. Or going back and reworking your magic system. Or just realizing that you need to repeat variations of the same imagery over and over to have a certain resonance.

So as I was writings, I made a two-page list of everything I wanted to change, from color's of a character's eyes to names to major plot holes that need solving. Of course, ideas don't occur in natural order, that's be too easy. So I think of something I need to fix in both the prologue and the middle of the story at the same time. And I don't want to go back and change things, because for all I know, by the end of the novel, I'll need to throw the entire scene out anyway, so why bother?

But that means I'm left with a list of semi-obtuse words like "bread baking" "spider feast" and "he burned his parents." Obviously, they only make sense to me at the moment. Hopefully they make sense to me--some of them are a little too cryptic shorthand, particularly the ones I came up with at 3 a.m. due to some messed up dream.

Anyway, so the first thing I'll do is organize the list so as I revise, I'll be able to check off changes as I make them.

Unfortunately, I'm sure there will be a second list I'll create after I revise the first time. Who was it that said "art is never finished, only abandoned?" Ah yes, Leonardo Di Vinci. Thank you, google.

Speaking of which, have you seen Microsoft's 'Bing' ads? They make me laugh because they make google sound so overly complicated and then they have almost the same screen, same system. I tried running a search with both engines and they all looked pretty much the same.

P.S. Gosh, I love Pandora. I have a Supreme Beings of Leisure station now and I love it for writing, along with my Enya station. One of my favorite bands, though hard to find anything by them. The problem is some times there's too much similarity. I tried an All-American Rejects Station and all the songs sounded exactly the same.

P.P.S. Hate to see Pub Rants' post that editors aren't looking for epic fantasy. If I get published, it'll be an example of how you don't have to chase the bandwagon as it rolls away without your manuscript, trying to jump aboard. Better to be the trend then follow it.