PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER !!!!!!!!!!!
(paper)
Warning: this is not a real blog post. This is me letting you know how much I love paper. Smells nice. Feels nice. Crinkles nice. Wrinkles nice. Takes to ink real nice.
Gets water and coffee spilled on it real nice. Dries nice. Reminds me of the little girl I've always been. Hording splotchy-covered Mead journals.
Yeah! You go paper!
I'm writing a novel in a Mead. Its so nice.
Showing posts with label paper v. digital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paper v. digital. Show all posts
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Monday, August 02, 2010
The delete button
I have lost my delete button privileges. One of my goals with revising my WIP is of course, brevity. I'm at about 150,000 words right now, and my max goal is 100,000. I'd really love to keep it under 90k though. Yesterday, I felt delete-happy. I took out things that I thought were unnecessary. I was so Brilliant. I was doing a Great Job.
Then today I read the 'finished product' and wanted to bang my head against the wall. I took out phrases that developed character! That brought intensity! Leaving me with bare-bones information that was wayyyy tooooo calmmm for the fear the character was feeling at the time.
Luckily, I hang on to old drafts. Every time I start changing things, I save the old one and do it in a new doc. So I'm going to scrap what I did and start anew with the second-most recent version.
It's never that simple though. I need punishment: no more direct delete button. I am going to do the double-check system, something I think all rogue/just-go-for-it/impatient writers (like myself) should do. Print out what you have, then cross out lines, words, paragraphs with your favorite read pen. Then at least one full day (or one mood change) later, take the words out digitally.
"Chickity-check yo self before you wreck yo self." -- Ice Cube
Then today I read the 'finished product' and wanted to bang my head against the wall. I took out phrases that developed character! That brought intensity! Leaving me with bare-bones information that was wayyyy tooooo calmmm for the fear the character was feeling at the time.
Luckily, I hang on to old drafts. Every time I start changing things, I save the old one and do it in a new doc. So I'm going to scrap what I did and start anew with the second-most recent version.
It's never that simple though. I need punishment: no more direct delete button. I am going to do the double-check system, something I think all rogue/just-go-for-it/impatient writers (like myself) should do. Print out what you have, then cross out lines, words, paragraphs with your favorite read pen. Then at least one full day (or one mood change) later, take the words out digitally.
"Chickity-check yo self before you wreck yo self." -- Ice Cube
Monday, July 19, 2010
the paper route
For whatever reason, I am writing this book completely on paper. It is so weird. I think maybe its because I have the internet now.
The internet is so distracting! Don't pretend you've never been caught in a Facebook click-a-thon. Unless, you're over thirty. Then maybe...just maybe...I might believe that you're immune. I simply have to eliminate the computer to eliminate distraction.
I'm also doing considerably more research this time around. This book is not fantasy. It is set in several real places. While I'm not being a total stickler for detail, I do want to name things properly, have them in the right location, correct weather and sunset times etc. etc. I have to create an essence for places I've never been.
What's your opinion? Does it bug you when you read about a place you've been and it puts a street in the wrong place or describe locals that look nothing like the vast majority of people that inhabit the place? Has that ever even happened to you? It's never happened to me, because I tend to read of "far off lands," whether fantastical or just plain far away.
I'm trying to find a balance. I need to do enough research to create the right vibe, but if I do too much I hyper ventilate from the lack of actual writing that gets done. (It's like oxygen.)
When I sit in front of the computer, the whole world is before me. Google Earth makes it so easy to do Way Too Much research. I could look at individual pictures of every brick on every building. It makes me nuts.
Because what really matters is the scene. What needs to happen at this point? What will all the characters do? When I answer that question, I find it necessary to fudge the lines a little bit, to screw with Mother Earth's placement of mountains. And I do. But so far, this has only been possible away from the computer.
I have to step away from it to enable my fudging and tweaking capabilities. Today, I bought a Mead Composition notebook that will house probably half of the first draft of the book. It's amazing that I blog. You'd think that a girl who writes on paper wouldn't even have a touch tone phone. And yet, I've learned to pick and choose my technologies, to neither purposelessly go with the flow nor hopelessly resist.
So even though I sit here typing to you, I will in about T -2 minutes, return to my notebook, where all the possibilities are mine.
The internet is so distracting! Don't pretend you've never been caught in a Facebook click-a-thon. Unless, you're over thirty. Then maybe...just maybe...I might believe that you're immune. I simply have to eliminate the computer to eliminate distraction.
I'm also doing considerably more research this time around. This book is not fantasy. It is set in several real places. While I'm not being a total stickler for detail, I do want to name things properly, have them in the right location, correct weather and sunset times etc. etc. I have to create an essence for places I've never been.
What's your opinion? Does it bug you when you read about a place you've been and it puts a street in the wrong place or describe locals that look nothing like the vast majority of people that inhabit the place? Has that ever even happened to you? It's never happened to me, because I tend to read of "far off lands," whether fantastical or just plain far away.
I'm trying to find a balance. I need to do enough research to create the right vibe, but if I do too much I hyper ventilate from the lack of actual writing that gets done. (It's like oxygen.)
When I sit in front of the computer, the whole world is before me. Google Earth makes it so easy to do Way Too Much research. I could look at individual pictures of every brick on every building. It makes me nuts.
Because what really matters is the scene. What needs to happen at this point? What will all the characters do? When I answer that question, I find it necessary to fudge the lines a little bit, to screw with Mother Earth's placement of mountains. And I do. But so far, this has only been possible away from the computer.
I have to step away from it to enable my fudging and tweaking capabilities. Today, I bought a Mead Composition notebook that will house probably half of the first draft of the book. It's amazing that I blog. You'd think that a girl who writes on paper wouldn't even have a touch tone phone. And yet, I've learned to pick and choose my technologies, to neither purposelessly go with the flow nor hopelessly resist.
So even though I sit here typing to you, I will in about T -2 minutes, return to my notebook, where all the possibilities are mine.
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