UnConventional - novel-in-progress

[Ximena]

I'm really excited! I hope to have the first complete draft done tomorrow. Got 15K written today and at about 70K words. Definitely the fastest and longest continuous project I've ever done, lol.

[janewheeler]

Good gracious -- again Can't wait to read it!

[Ximena]

Thanks! I'm really excited about it and can't wait for everyone to read it as well.

[Deleted]

That's so great! How ling did it all take you? it feels like you've written it in a .ight. it's so great to be inspired like that. I'm sure Ruth is glad she has so many submissions! This whole project has a wonderful start...

[Ximena]

Well assuming I finish the first rough draft tonight as planned, I'd say about two weeks. For the first rough draft. Which is like super mega lightning speed for me lol.

[ruthmadison]

Woo-hoo!

(and at this point, I can use more submissions! )

[Ximena]

LOL. I'm willing to help anyone who might want help if you think you have an idea but have trouble fleshing it out, also.

[Deleted]

Jul 6, 2012 14:49:23 GMT -5 Ximena said:

LOL. I'm willing to help anyone who might want help if you think you have an idea but have trouble fleshing it out, also.

I have loooads of ideas, but I'm feeling drained lately, lol. I'm at half, with 50k words written so far. The other half is just a rough draft with 'scenes', I just need an extra 20k words to connect them..My goal is the end of summer...By I have two sex scenes so far

[Ximena]

Yay, Crista! I know how you feel. This book is "unconventinoal" in more ways than one, lol. As it's usually not this easy for me to write something so long and complete and so quickly!

The first rough draft is OFFICIALLY done as of right now - just over 75K. Now to do some polishing and stuff and have a friend read it over so I can get a second draft. But it's still really exciting to have the first draft done - to have the entire story there and complete. Whoopee!!

[ej]

Wow!! Goooooooo Ximena!!!

[janewheeler]

I have never gotten that far with anything over 2k or so -- certainly not with fiction. But I just checked out my word count for SttS today and it's right at 40k! I've been pretty steady at 2000-2500 or so per section, so just filling in the blanks from what I have already is going to take me over that much-vaunted 50k mark. I think this is the first time that I've ever felt like I'd make it to a full length, so this is super exciting.

Ximena, your experience will be a good gauge for me. I know everyone likes different things, but how do you think you'll go about this first round of edits? Do you plan to use Track Changes, or just ask for major overarching concerns, or what? How big or small are you willing to go here?

[Ximena]

Jul 7, 2012 0:54:46 GMT -5 janewheeler said:

I have never gotten that far with anything over 2k or so -- certainly not with fiction. But I just checked out my word count for SttS today and it's right at 40k! I've been pretty steady at 2000-2500 or so per section, so just filling in the blanks from what I have already is going to take me over that much-vaunted 50k mark. I think this is the first time that I've ever felt like I'd make it to a full length, so this is super exciting.

Ximena, your experience will be a good gauge for me. I know everyone likes different things, but how do you think you'll go about this first round of edits? Do you plan to use Track Changes, or just ask for major overarching concerns, or what? How big or small are you willing to go here?

I'm usually much more like you, Jane, so I know what you mean - still, 50K is a huge accomplishment! That's what you need to technically "finish" a book for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) - so that's really awesome. I would LOVE to see SttS become a full-length novel - but you already know that .

As far as the process now that I've got the first draft complete, this is my plan. It might change as I go along because the longest thing I've ever revised have been full-length screenplays and obviously those are different from prose. But here's my plan:

1- Go through the rough draft and fix very minor things - typos, tense issues, minor logic problems - most of these because I wrote the draft SOOO fast.

2- Give this first draft to a friend with a list of some issues I want them to consider when they read and get their feedback.

3- While they're reading it (since I wrote in word perfect this time), I'm going to transfer the whole manuscript into Scrivner and start dividing it up by scenes, marking characters, etc., all the good stuff that Scrinver is great for.

4- Once the manuscript is converted into Scrivner and I have some initial feedback, I'll start going through and seeing what scenes need to be fixed, deleted, moved, etc. Scrinver will be really helpful to start getting a "scene map" that will give me an idea of what scenes are working to their fullest and which aren't - it'll also help me see if the pacing is right or if things need to be adjusted, etc.

5- Once I start to get a feel for what needs to be fixed/tweaked/etc., I'll start going through it and make major changes that might be necessary.

6- Once I feel like the structure is solid, then I'll go through and work on polishing up the prose itself. I may have someone else read it again before this stage, it will just have to depend. If not, once I get a real true second draft I will have a few other people I know read it and give their feedback. If it seems good enough, then I will go from there, possibly hand it over to Ruth to see what she thinks.

Anyway, that's kind of my plan. Not sure if it will go like that or not, lol. We'll see.

[Deleted]

Not hijacking the thread but as I recently gave Scrivener a try, I had no idea for the things you're talking about here

3- While they're reading it (since I wrote in word perfect this time), I'm going to transfer the whole manuscript into Scrivner and start dividing it up by scenes, marking characters, etc., all the good stuff that Scrinver is great for.

You mean if I get the time to actually read the guide, the program will do this?!

[ruthmadison]

I use yWriter, which is similar to Scrivener, but I would do all that dividing up by scene and stuff first! I like to have a strong outline before I write.

I'm so thrilled to hear about all these stories nearing completion!

[Ximena]

Well it doesn't do it automatically, if that's what you're thinking. LOL. But it really is worth to go through the whole tutorial because there is a TON of great features to the program.