Thursday, July 12, 2007

Frustrations in Writing

Or, Vent Time!

Argh! I’m currently plodding through my first draft of Out of the Shadows: Book II of the Elysian Chronicles, trying to make it my second draft—which has to be done by the end of this week, by the way, if I want to get it out to my advance readers before I leave for three weeks so I can get their comments when I come back. Anyway, the first part of the novel flows smoothly from one scene to the other. Everything makes sense and feels right (finally). Putting my scenes together to has thus far been easy (and taken me a week.)

Unfortunately, just after my midpoint, everything goes haywire. I’ve got tangents, loose ends that never get resolved, repetitive scenes that quickly become annoying, etc. Name your writing problem and, trust me, it’s in there. Basically, the best way to describe working with the last half of the Out of the Shadows manuscript is this: it’s like putting a puzzle together. I’ve got all the pieces I need—as well as a whole bunch of pieces that I don’t need. I have to sort between the pieces and figure out which ones belong and which ones stay, only I don’t have the box cover to look at.

Add to that, the fact that I’m dealing with two separate dimensions with two separate plots, meaning two separate puzzles that have to fit together. The question becomes, can I get this done in four days?

Probably not without coffee…

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For more information on my novel, A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles, and my upcoming novel, Out of the Shadows: Book II of the Elysian Chronicles, check out my website at http://www.elysianchronicles.com.

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