switching it up

I write with a pen.
On paper.

It's ancient, but it's how I do it.

With my first book I was very conscientious about keeping up with my typing as I wrote--knowing that the typing was the first edit, but also knowing that going back to the story would keep my head in the various subplots I'd foreshadowed. (I usually typed some 20 - 40 pages behind my writing)

With this second book, I've slacked a bit. Okay, a lot. I wrote, and wrote, but I didn't type. I now have 145 handwritten pages, and only 30 of them typed in. Oy.

The problem is, haven't made my way past the minor black moment that ham strung me at the beginning of the week. It worries me. I hate it when the characters shut up, and usually it's because I'm taking them in a direction they don't want to go it. But hell, it's a black moment, no one wants to go there. So I don't know if they're not talking because they're pissed at being separated and mad / disappointed in each other, or if they're not talking because I zigged when they wanted me to zag.

Either way, this week I've focused almost entirely on typing and I'm seeing how my writing has grown even since the beginning of this book.

In the first book I noticed that I tended to mis-order my paragraphs. It was like I had a snapshot of what the scene looked like, and I crammed it all in, but I forgot the cause & affect nature of reality. So in editing the first book I spent a lot of time re-arranging sentences within paragraphs.

In this book, I've noticed finer craft related issues. Using "was" too often, throwing in more gerunds than necessary, telling when I have a prime opportunity to show. And frankly, I think I'm spending way too much time in their eyes. All of this matters, but none of it matters as much as finishing the damn book.

So I'm hoping that as I type in the beginning the story, the end of the novel will reveal itself.
Actually, I already know the end. I know the real black moment, I know the inciting incident. I also know how they're going to make up and what the HEA will look like. I just don't know what's going to happen next.

I need to know what happens next. They have to touch base, they have to test each other and they have to be together enough to be ripped apart again. Dammit. *sigh* Anyway, off to type. Wish me luck.






Currently reading: B is for Burglar
Currently reading: Donovan's Promise
Just finished: Midnight Rainbow