Topic #137: What invention, as in something not yet invented (jetpack, teleportation ring, time machine) do you most need right now?
The fall that I started Grace Awakening, I also started a high interest low vocab novel I called #8. When Grace took over my life for six months as she told me her 150,000 word story, #8 languished as an outline and one chapter. When Grace was finished, I set to work on #8. I’m aiming for it to be completed at 15,000 words, so it’s a tenth of Grace’s size. You’d think it would have taken a tenth of the time- say eighteen days instead of 180, but no. For all its brevity, #8 has sat with ‘something’ not quite right for almost two years. Every once and awhile I pull it out and add a paragraph here, a chapter there, fine tune a paragraph, crop out a sentence, but the intangible thing has been elusive.
This last week I’ve been reading and thinking about #8. I’ve added half a chapter and decided that I need to crop out the first chapter I wrote for this book (presently it is chapter 2). I realised that I have a beach scene immediately followed by a snow shovelling scene (this is feasible in Calgary, but not in the Shuswap!). Oops. I figured out the biggest area that needs fixing.
As I was drifting off to sleep, one of the minor characters stepped up. She had been in one brief scene in the seventh chapter, but suddenly she had a back story to share that was relevant to the rest of the story. She had been there all along, with the answer to the question, if only I’d been paying attention. I had to be up in a few hours, and I couldn’t afford to get up and write out the scene. I was sure that it would not be lost over night, but I could not shut off the narrative.
It would be so handy for authors to have a brain writing machine. While you sat in a boring meeting, went jogging through the neighborhood, or were drifting off to sleep, your brain writer could dictate the narrative rolling in your thoughts and put it into a file. What a brilliant devise that would be.
Shawn L. Bird 
necessity, the mom May 27, 2011
Tags: #8, Grace Awakening, invention, postaday2011, writing
Topic #137: What invention, as in something not yet invented (jetpack, teleportation ring, time machine) do you most need right now?
The fall that I started Grace Awakening, I also started a high interest low vocab novel I called #8. When Grace took over my life for six months as she told me her 150,000 word story, #8 languished as an outline and one chapter. When Grace was finished, I set to work on #8. I’m aiming for it to be completed at 15,000 words, so it’s a tenth of Grace’s size. You’d think it would have taken a tenth of the time- say eighteen days instead of 180, but no. For all its brevity, #8 has sat with ‘something’ not quite right for almost two years. Every once and awhile I pull it out and add a paragraph here, a chapter there, fine tune a paragraph, crop out a sentence, but the intangible thing has been elusive.
This last week I’ve been reading and thinking about #8. I’ve added half a chapter and decided that I need to crop out the first chapter I wrote for this book (presently it is chapter 2). I realised that I have a beach scene immediately followed by a snow shovelling scene (this is feasible in Calgary, but not in the Shuswap!). Oops. I figured out the biggest area that needs fixing.
As I was drifting off to sleep, one of the minor characters stepped up. She had been in one brief scene in the seventh chapter, but suddenly she had a back story to share that was relevant to the rest of the story. She had been there all along, with the answer to the question, if only I’d been paying attention. I had to be up in a few hours, and I couldn’t afford to get up and write out the scene. I was sure that it would not be lost over night, but I could not shut off the narrative.
It would be so handy for authors to have a brain writing machine. While you sat in a boring meeting, went jogging through the neighborhood, or were drifting off to sleep, your brain writer could dictate the narrative rolling in your thoughts and put it into a file. What a brilliant devise that would be.
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