3-Day Progress Report

Note to reader: There are some interesting bits here, but mostly, I suspect this report (and any future ones I may write) are droll and incomprehensible to everyone expect me. You've been warned.

On Day 1 (July 29), I went through and revised all of Chapter 1. It was a delightful experience, and as I mentioned previously, K is now officially strange. Here's a short excerpt below, because I just can't stop squeeing over her:

She bent down to see the corpse better, keeping a careful distance from the closest thorns. “Hello,” she said to it. “Did you get my letter? Are you here to rescue me?” She searched for the eyes, but the man’s head was turned away from her. It was rude of him to ignore her so! But it was no matter. It couldn’t be helped.

Charming, isn't she? I think so.

Chapter 1 revisions went smoothly. The fact that the page count (single-spaced) went from 8 to 6 following revisions probably indicates why, although I did have to change a lot to capture K's inner voice. I suppose you could say I deleted three pages worth of angst and added one page worth of psychotic thinking.

Then I moved on to Chapter 2, but I got stuck immediately, and after an embarrassingly unproductive struggle, went to bed.

On Day 2 (July 30) I struggled and struggled with the first scene of Chapter 2, where I had left off last night. I don't know why it was so hard. Most of it was just some changes to a conversation, but I had a hard time because I was unclear on AG's side of the story. There was a drastic shift made in the direction of the conversation (knowing what he's getting into, he proposes the home delivery instead of her), but after working on it for a while longer, I had to change it back because the first direction contained implications later on that better serve the story. (And it meant less rewriting, ultimately.) Also, I began working on a transition scene that I lacked before. At 2 am, I told myself it was time to close shop, or else my eyes would bug out within a week. I did go to bed, but it was hardly worth it, considering I took an hour to fall asleep.

On Day 3 (today, July 31), I woke up at 8 am with thoughts of the scene I had left off with--the entrance of AK. I finished adding that transition scene (and I am pleased with it) and moved on with the rest of Chapter 2. I nitpicked my way through the court scenes, and spent way too long on changes that were ultimately minor. The page count changed from an original 12 pages (again, single-spaced. They'll always be single-spaced unless I indicate otherwise from now on) to 17 pages. And considering the hours I put in...not terribly impressive. Such is the nature of revision though--quality over quantity.

In any case, I got to the travel scene, or rather, the lack of travel scene, in Chapter 2, and decided that I'd had it with this chapter. I have a pretty good general idea of how it'll go, and I've done most of the research I need to make it work, but it's just a big pain. The problem is that I moved the travelers' destination from Kitayama, in Kyoto, all the way down to Wakayama, two prefectures (here, provinces) away, so travel becomes that much more long and complicated. Did you know that Wakayama prefecture was known as Kii back then? I'm so glad I have this Japanese atlas from 2nd year middle school Japanese school. It's so helpful, with its terrain maps and pre-Meiji maps.

The original plan was to revise one chapter a day so that I could start writing a serious draft of Chapter 4 on August 1, but considering I haven't even begun Chapter 3 revisions yet and it's 10 pm, that may not happen. The goal is now to finish Chapter 3 revisions on August 1.

It's funny, but before all this revision happened, I knew that Chapter 1 sucked, while Chapters 2 and 3 were pretty decent. Maybe even good. I figured I wouldn't have to do much to revise Chapters 2 and 3. And now look. Chapter 1 took under a day. Chapter 2 revisions took two whole days, and I'm not even going to bother finishing its revisions until later, since they're not really plot-central. And I don't even know how Chapter 3 revisions will go. Although I do believe I can get them done within tomorrow, since it's more of a setting chapter than a plot-moving chapter. The major thing for Chapter 3, I think, is to rewrite K so that she's as unbalanced as she is in Chapter 1. I guess, in conclusion, it's easier to fix really bad chapters than it is to fix good chapters because there's less you're worried about deleting. With good chapters, you want to keep everything that's good and fix everything that's sub-par, but that requires more selectivity, I suppose.

...This progress report thing is kind of theraputic.

Revisiting Chapters 1-3

Uggwaah! I completely re-did K's character in Chapter One. Which is a good thing, because now she's crazy again, instead of angsty. And I did it all in one day too. Good progress, right? But then I got to Chapter Two, which I thought was good before. In light of all the plot complications I came up with the other day though, it needs revising. So much revising. Not to mention polishing in general, which I can see now that I've been away from it for so many months. I put most of that off and moved on to re-read Chapter Three. I'm a fourth of the way through reading, and it's already obvious to me that I'll need to do more major scrapping and rewriting. Yeah, thanks for changing your character on me, K. Nice of you to finally figure out your motivations, only they're so twisted I can't even get them straight. You kill me, you absolutely kill me.

*reads further into Chapter Three* Oh, K. Plot-wise, you cause me endless trouble, but you have such great lines. You're just so funny, so brilliantly crazy. I think I have a love/hate relationship with you.

Plotted!

Huh. I didn't know I could get involved enough in the outlining/plotting process to get teary-eyed over a scene. I guess that's a good sign that I'm actually seeing it in my head.

Anyways. The plot is sketched out! More or less. I hope. And the story makes some sense. But it's still a mess. And I actually have to write the thing now. Let's see if the plot as I have it holds up under the stresses of writing and selfish characters running about as they please.

Plotting was HARD. Storyboarding, I guess is the term. Anyway, it took two whole days. Or more. Just visualizing, jotting down random scene bits or lines and some scene/chapter direction, and coming up with events and the whole storyline, which isn't even that complicated. On the one hand, storyboarding was hard because I had to visualize a lot, without knowing if it could be written plausibly. But on the other hand, it was good because I didn't actually have to storyboard, exactly, if I didn't want to. I could write a simple story direction for detailed, komakai parts and put it off until the actual writing. In any case, I'm glad I strugged through it. I think it's going to be very helpful and give me a track to keep on if I get lost. Now let's see if the rest of the story will get written.

a stick and a carrot

If I can get the first draft of the novel done by August 30th, then I will allow myself to seriously consider an MFA program. How's that for a carrot? And if I fail, then no carrot for me. That's the stick. Talk about making your life a gamble.

Home from vacation

The last two weeks--a tiny netbook. Typos multiplied by ten. Searches for the right keys on the too-small keyboard. Computer avoidance.

My laptop is large. Amazingly large. If I were goo, I would pool around my large, large small laptop and sigh.