Showing posts with label 1st draft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1st draft. Show all posts

Monday, August 03, 2020

3 Best Books on Writing

If you want to be a good writer, study your craft. You wouldn't preform brain surgery without training, don't dishonor your book/story by going in half-assed. Arm yourself with the right tools.

First, get yourself a good grammar book. I personally like Stunk & White. Just the facts here, no window dressing. Grammar is the basics of  writing and just like any other skill you can learn it. Refer to the book with any questions that pop up. Make notes in the book. I use post it notes to flag pages where I know I'm weaker. Every now and then I page through it to reinforce those rules in my mind. After all, if you don't know the rules, how ya gonna break them?

Second, Writing Down the Bones by Annie Lamott. This book will show you some ins and outs of the writing life. It ain't all tea parties and book signings. Writers work. Hard.

Third, will give you some inspiration. Stephen King's On Writing. Find out where he came from an the work he did to get there. From disgusting laundry sheets filled with maggots to how he hit it big. Then he tells you about his own tool box of writing. His writing schedule and his self imposed discipline.

The key to writing your book, finishing your book is found in your daily routine. Prolific writers know this in their heart.

Friday, October 11, 2019

The Dreaded 2nd Draft

Writing that second draft is a killer. The story is all there, inside your head but now you have to do it over and over and over until it's polished to perfection.

I think my mind has gone numb. I know what happens next, I've read and reread all 125, 331 words until they've become tattooed on my brain. I want to move on. I want to be free to write the next story.

There's another big D word out there and it's what I need to exercise now; discipline.  That thing that makes us do what we should do and not what we really want to do.

No wonder Hemingway drank. It was probably due to that second draft.

I'm on chapter 3 for the 2nd or maybe it's the 3rd round. Then it goes on the shelf for a bit... not intentionally! Then I bring it back out and start over.

 Ok, NANOWRIMO is fast approaching so it's either finish it now or it might push into next year. The first time I pushed a book through to the finish line I scheduled it. Up at 6 am every morning and right to my desk. Write till 7 or 7:30 and then work that full time job. So, it's time to straighten up, put writing back on the schedule block and just do it.

First I have to clean off my desk. It's always best to have that writing spot to go to where the world doesn't intrude.
Second make a tracker. Visual aids always help. When you can look up and see that progress it helps to see how far you've come and how close the finish line is. Anything here works from a calendar to just a list with dates.
Third? Is there a third?

What do you do to get through the polishing process and ready for publication?

Go Indie or Publishing House?

 Like the song says; You can buy your own Flowers.  Yet still we hesitate.  Agent - Publishing House - Indie Okay, getting an agent who can ...