I have three main problems with revision. The first is that the English language is no friend of mine. Sure, I’m a native speaker, but I’m also a Computer Science major so they almost cancel each other out. I spent four years in college learning to write code, not prose. In fact, many of those years were spent trying to figure out how to avoid taking any humanities classes at all. Whoops. Who knew that was going to come back to haunt me?

My second problem is that I’m a huge, HUGE procrastinator. (See what I’m doing here? Writing this post? That means I’m not revising.) The only reason I finish NaNoWriMo is because I’m competitive and I have a hard daily word count goal. With revision, it’s a bit trickier because goals aren’t as set in stone. Some chapters need major rewrites and others need minor proofing so a chapter-by-chapter breakdown isn’t that easy. A friend and I are both revising right now, but since we’re both procrastinating, we’re neither getting anything done. Procrastinators unite!

My third and final problem–and the one that is contributing to my lack of motivation–is that Novel One currently stands at around 50,000 words. For a first-time author in the genre, it needs to be more in the 85,000 words ballpark. That’s an extra 35,000 words that I still need to write.

Thirty-five thousand words. During NaNo that would take about 21 days.  In this case, it’s going to take a lot longer because I have to fit it in with what is already written and I just don’t want to write it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real problem. Writing a novel is fun; revising a novel is work. Both are required if I want to have any hope of getting published. I just have to tough it out. Wish me luck.  :)

I opened one eye, only to squint angrily at the clock.  The red digits glowed brightly at me, oblivious to my foul mood—3:08 AM.  Ugh.  “Nicolae,” I said without turning my head, “go home.  It’s an ungodly hour.  I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

Nicolae is the vampire sworn to protect me by an oath to my father—the father I never knew.  He also had the worst habit of popping in unannounced in the middle of the night to check on me.  It woke me up every time, even from a dead sleep, because I could subconsciously feel the change in the room and it set off little alarm bells in my head.  Tonight was especially bad, though, because I had gotten to sleep less than an hour ago.

“Ava,” he gasped, “help.”

I sat straight up, adrenaline surging into my veins.  Nicolae never, ever asked for help.  I’d seen him single-handedly take out an entire coven without requiring any assistance from me.  I scrambled for the switch of my bedside lamp and flicked it on, throwing the room into stark light and deep shadows.

He was crouched at the foot of my bed, his body hunched in on itself.  The left half of his shirt was shredded.  A wound in his side that looked suspiciously like a bullet hole was bleeding steadily.  It was his eyes, however, that put me on edge.  Blood red and practically glowing, those eyes meant trouble.

-Jessie

And now for the editing.  Oh, the editing…

All of that added up to a goal today of 5510 to stay on track.  Yeah, over five thousand words.  Today.  Holy crap it adds up in a hurry.

I made it.  It took most of the day, but I did it.  I demolished my goal.*  How did I do it?  Blood, sweat, and tears.  Or maybe just diligence.  One of the two, for sure.

Like the Nike ad, the best advice is Just Do It.  I didn’t really want to write five thousand words today.  I’m in the middle of the book.  My characters are dumb.  The plot is going nowhere.  All I’m writing is dialog, which I hate with a fiery passion.

None of that matters.  What matters is that I’m doing it.  I’m writing and I’m forcing myself–for the most part–to stay on track.  I will win this year, if I have to drag my novel, kicking and screaming, across the line.  It may come to that.

*Okay,  I wrote 5614.  Not exactly a huge jump over 5510 but I’ll take what I can get.

It turned out pretty good except that the vast majority of people we talked to during the day didn’t get the reference.   “Dr. Who?”  “No, Dr. Horrible.  Yes, it has Doogie Howser in it.  Yes, it’s funny, I promise.”

The write-in was at Dragon’s Lair, a local comic book/game store and I’m happy to report that the people there are much cooler (they recognized us).  These are my people.  :)

A pic:

The Doctors Horrible

You’ll notice that I’m missing the pocket.  I made it, I was just too lazy to sew it on last minute.

ocean, woman, man, hatred, trails, mountain, shoelaces, tree, summer, Japan, lottery, gravy, plaza, duplicate, pants

I’m considering continuing with some sort of daily writing exercise, so let me know if you enjoyed this month-long peek inside my brain.

Now I’m gearing up for NaNo because November 1 is just two weeks from today.  I still don’t have any solid idea of what I’m going to write.  A couple of the story snippets I posted for the days of genius really appealed to me, so I might use them in the novel.  Or I could always write a sequel to last year’s novel.  Either way, I’m sure that on November 1, I’ll be writing something.

I’m thinking about posting my NaNo novel as I write it, but I’m not sure I’m that brave.   After all, the order of the day for NaNo is velocity, and the novel I wrote last year is in pretty bad shape.  A few hundred words a day with each day being unrelated is one thing, but nearly 2,000 words a day that are supposed to form a cohesive novel is something entirely different.

I may be sarcastic but I’m also realistic.  This was basically a suicide mission, which is why it was volunteer only.  The jungle made locating the base difficult, especially since they kept moving it.  Tonight’s mission was the hostages best chance for rescue–maybe their only chance.

Our team was small even though nearly two dozen had volunteered.  I had hand picked each member to give us the best possible chance.  We were going and we were coming home.  Simple as that.  I would do my best as CO to make sure every man came back safe.  We’d been over the plan enough times that each man knew exactly what his job was.  Now it was time to put the plan into action.

Writing prompts:  time, candy, pontoon

My phone rang from somewhere in the depths of my purse.  I almost let it go, glad to finally leave the office, but my conscience reminded me that it could be an emergency.  I flipped it open without bothering to check the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kate, where are you?  I’m standing out front but you didn’t answer the door.”  My best friend Jen’s voice came through the speaker.

Shit.  I was supposed to be going to the opera tonight with Jen.  That’s what my brain had been trying repeatedly to remind me about today.  I looked down at my blood stained clothes and cringed.  I needed a shower and a change.  It was twenty minutes home and a least twenty for the shower and wardrobe swap, then thirty or more to the event center.  I was pretty sure it started at eight thirty, so I was going to be at least thirty minutes late.

“Kate?  You there?”

“Yeah, sorry.  I’m just leaving work.”

“Kate!” The whine in her voice came through perfectly.

“I know, I know.  It’s been a crazy day.  You go on, I’ll catch up.  I should be less than half an hour late.”

Writing prompts:  dog, opera, hospital