Diana's Writing Blog

Well, November is National Novel Writing Month, so I guess October can be National Edit Last Year's Novel....Month. Not as catchy, I know. Anyway, if you recall, last year was my first year winnng NaNo WriMo. So I figured on top of gearing up to write the new novel in Novemeber, I'd also go back and do some major editing on the one I wrote last year. I've already taken a few passes at it, but kind of randomly: working on the parts I wanted to whenever I was bored at work. I did re-work the beginning quite a bit, and I'm fairly happy with how that looks now. The middle still sags, though, and it's all around too short, so that's what I'll work on this month.

So, here's my to-do list for October:

1. Do a chapter outline. For some reason, this is one of the last things I do. I don't know why. That's just my process.


2. Reread/Revise character sketches. I feel like my main character's personality goes a bit rogue somewhere in the middle, so once I have my chapter outline, I'll look at him and decide whether the character sketch or the character's actions in the book need to be revised.


3. Read through the entire novel. I've skipped around a lot in it. I need to sit down and read through the entire thing for continuity of seasons/time of day, resolution of plot lines, and spelling/grammar/writing tropes. (My worst is facial expressions/gestures. I tend to start my dialogue with things like "John grimaced," "Mr. Doe shrugged," "Jane nodded." Not bad once in a while, but when every other line has characters nodding and shrugging all over, something's gotta change.)


4. Decide I hate it and that it's un-fixable and switch to prep work for the new novel. I figure this'll happen sometime in the next two weeks, so that'll give me plenty of time to do preliminary character sketches and outlines for the novel I plan to write in November.


5. Do character sketches for the new novel.


6. Outline the new novel. No slacking on that this year. I tend to have an idea of where to start and an idea of where to end. So my outline of the middle of the book is always "[stuff happens....and somehow we get here-->]" and that's a recipe for writer's block right there. Of course, by the time I get to the middle, where I'm headed will probably bear little resemblance to what I outlined, but I'll at least have something to fall back on if I get stuck.