Healing The Heartache

Hello,

At the beginning of the week I blogged about the loss of 74% of my writing. That was 25,000 words lost in an instant because I was being a little careless. I can’t blame the computer, it only mindlessly did what I asked it to do. Ironically I get peeved at computers when they double-check meaningless activities: ‘Are you sure you want to print that?’

I had a rough night sleep on Monday, I was angry at myself for wasting a lot of work. I joked to a friend that I was more upset on Monday night at the loss of my book than I had been the last time I broke up with someone.
At least I think I was joking.

When I got up for breakfast on Tuesday morning I was sore and tired. My back hurt and my eyes felt foggy. I was still in a bad mood and didn’t want to think about my book and writing any more. The task of starting again seemed too great. I didn’t think that I would be up to the job.

This made me more angry at myself. Now I was angry for daring to think of letting this moment of idiocy ruin what has been one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling months of my life in a number of years. Yes, I was scared of re-writing what I had already done. Of course, I was worried that I would not be able to recreate what it had been. Obviously, I was anxious about the moment I would start again. I’m not a good starter of things, I rarely have that planned out. As it stands the first paragraph of my book is:

I think the exact words I said to my mum were, “Don’t fucking tell me what to fucking do.” I’m sure that the second ‘fucking’ was lost to her by the thunder of my door slamming. I’m not proud of it and in hindsight it was probably not a proportionate response to her saying encouragingly, “Evin, you really should be doing more to get a job.”

So, yeah.
I don’t think that will last beyond editing, but at the time it was all I had to get the ball rolling on the book.

The same principle applied to the rewrites. I had made a bullet point list of what I remember the key moments of the plot were and the order that they came in. I sat at my desk, took a deep breath, and started typing. It was difficult at first, I was conscious that I was trying to recreate something while trying not to copy exactly what it had been. I finished the day having written 5,000 words. I have been hitting that as a standard target each day since. I wrote 6,000 words yesterday because I had to finish what was happening.

I am currently at 18,000 words and in most places I am pleased with how it’s coming together. There are definitely places that are more concise now than they had been previously, and there are some moments that have been stripped right back and are less overwritten.

In essence I’m pleased that I didn’t wait, that I didn’t allow myself to become overwhelmed by rewriting. I’m pleased that I got straight back to it.

I would not recommend this process of writing.

– Andrew

 

Heartache

The interactive aspect of my blog begins tomorrow, but I thought I’d share a little true life short story.

A terrible thing befell me today, something I imagine a lot of you have possibly dealt with. Today I lost 25,000 words of my book. And my heart is broken.

It was such a stupid mistake. I was copying the file to Dropbox so that, laughably, I would have a backup safe from any computer problems. Rather than copying the file I moved it, when I moved it back the Dropbox file was an old backup.
It’s all gone.

My intention is to write a bullet point breakdown of what I remember of the book and more or less where things were (the more recent work will be easier to do) and then work from that to rewrite it. I think it’s going to be painful as what I want to do is rewrite it exactly how it was, but what I need to do is use the blueprint of what I remember to find it again. I figure it’s all in my head, I’ve just got to unlock it again.

The short story part of this blog will be a good diversion.

Remember, always make backups. But do it properly so that in doing so it doesn’t RUIN EVERYTHING.

– Andrew

Convenience, Contrivance and Cliché

Hello,

My novel-writing has been coming on well recently, the note I made at the start of the week unlocked a huge amount of content and I hit the 20,000 word mark yesterday. I’m still in the early part of the book and have been surprised that I’ve gone to some of the dark places that I have. I knew there would be some unpleasant moments along the journey but, well, I’ve surprised myself.

I have been thinking about conveniences, contrivances and clichés. To me all narratives are a series of conveniences, events that happen to characters are times that propel them forward through the story. Luke buying 3PO and R2 is a convenience. I also feel that these events fall under the suspension of disbelief umbrella and are protected from deep scrutiny.

Contrivances on the other hand seem like false godlike manipulation, forcing events to occur in a particular way to further the plot (I’d throw almost all of the Bond films into this category).

Clichés are a strange thing because they only become such through familiarity. I don’t necessarily believe they are a bad thing and can allow for some clever subversion. I’m particularly fond of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 4, Episode 12 – A New Man) that finds the character Ethan Rayne hiding in a crypt and performing a sinister monologue after Giles leaves, only for Giles to pop back in and interrupt saying, “Is someone…?”. Buffy always worked best when it dissected the tropes of cliché.

This is a lot of talk about film and TV, my apologies.

My protagonist is called Evin and late in the story I intend for her to meet someone who I’m not looking forward to writing. He has always been there and is built into the final part of Evin’s story. Yesterday I wrote a section where she met an unpleasant character, intended to be a bit throw away role. I gave him a body, named him, surrounded him with people, and let him speak. And I really like the character, in the way that he’s a total bastard and I hate him. This left me wondering, would Evin meeting the same character again later spill awkwardly into contrivance? Would you read his reappearance and not believe that he would be there? The world I’ve created would not limit that sort of character to one person. My gut is that it would not be the same person she will meet again later, that I will work out a different personality and try to find a different way to be sinister.

Part of me is sad though, this horrific human got two pages and I can’t stop thinking about him.

– Andrew