Modus Operandi for Round Three

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In honor of the occasion, here's MaoMao, my Snowshoe Siamese kitty boy, dressed up as a leprechaun (courtesy of Photoshop):



Since I'm three weeks into the third round of Seventy Days of Sweat, I thought I'd talk about how my sweating method (and no, I don't mean my hikes in the woods) has evolved since the first round.

For the first round of Sweat, I rough-drafted my angsty ghost story, House on Bear Branch, then I spent the second round of Sweat revising it. And I kept revising it until the third round of Sweat began on March 1, then I began rough-drafting Heart's Chalice, my current WIP.

I always spend more time on revisions than I do on rough-drafting, but the rough draft for House on Bear Branch needed a whole hell of a lot more revising than I usually do. And more work is still needed.

Why?

Seventy Days of Sweat was the first writing challenge I participated in, and I thought I needed reams of raw verbiage to kick my butt out of that miserable writing slump I fell into last year. So I decided to completely muzzle my Inner Editor -- lock her in a soundproofed room in my mind and duct tape her mouth shut while I focused exclusively on finishing a rough draft. Any darned rough draft.

For House on Bear Branch, I pushed on and pushed on, pumping out verbiage and doing no editing whatsoever as I went. And the result was a mess. Don't get me wrong: it isn't a hopeless case. I'll whip the thing into shape over time, but I learned an important lesson.

For Beast of Stoney Creek, the mystery I rough-drafted for NaNoWriMo, I worked differently -- still no edit-as-I-go, my inner editor secured in that sound-proofed room, but for that story, I worked from an outline. That rough-draft is in decent shape, but though I don't mind writing from an outline, I tend to be more of a pantster than a plotster at heart.

Where does that leave me for Heart's Chalice, my rough-draft in progress? Well, I've got an eye on word count for the Sweat Challenge, sure, but this time, I'm editing as I go.

Any rough draft needs lots of work and this one will be no different, but it will be neater, more tidy. This time, as I hone in on inconsistencies or exciting new plot threads, I go back through the story-in-progress and fix what needs fixing before pushing forward.

And incidentally, that was my modus operandi as a novelist before I started participating in writing challenges!

The Great Writing Slump of 2007 is safely in the past. Though I want to remain productive, I don't need to pump out words as though any minute my computer -- or my head -- might explode.

I highly recommend writing challenges: they can be helpful, and they're fun. Just don't let them make you pick up -- or cling to -- bad habits, writing techniques which don't work well for you.

My advice to those of you participating in writing challenges: sure, take pleasure in upping the word count and let your inner editor take a back seat as you focus on building the story... but don't lock her away in a soundproofed room in your mind. You'll probably regret it.

Live and learn, eh?

I'm having a great time with Heart's Chalice -- it's the most magical, out-there tale I've ever written, and it keeps surprising me at every turn. And that's a good thing. I figure if it surprises me, then it will surprise its readers, too.